Filed under: Poetry | Tags: Big Brother, Charles Bukowski, Collective Consciousness, George Orwell, Paranoia, Philip K. Dick, The Transparent Society, Tom Robbins
(This poem goes out to all of the cameras I see in every grocery store and every building lobby. To those two luscious jugs that hang below the NYPD Security Boxes on every other street light on every major street.)
the camera is my lover
it’s clarity is my vision
it haunts my dreams
it holds me back
the camera needs me
my constant attention
it scorns my affection
but never looks away
but for all its sway
the camera doesn’t know
my heart
my mind
the truth
what if there were no madmen
except the ones in charge
what do you do
when everyone believes a lie
how do you cry
what can i say
is there any real hope
for the sane to be free
Filed under: Uncategorized
[This is an open source sort-of work in progress which I'll be adding to continually as my thoughts crystallize through other discussions. I'll take any critiques, but realize that my phrasing and argumentation is still very much in draft form. This post is heavily influenced by the documentary, The Corporation (below), Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians, and David Brin's lecture on dealing with accelerating change in a burgeoning technocracy Evaluating Horizons, as well as my own personal experience in and about the corporatocracy. I would highly encourage anyone who agrees or disagrees with me to join in the conversation and point out where I you feel I'm wrong or right.]
I think the danger of many top-down corporate structures is that too many of them shut out criticism from the people at the bottom who do the actual work. Many are organized as to be essentially a web of disconnected bureaucracies, each with a top-down hierarchy. In a very real way, they can often resemble an oppressive government, or a poorly functioning democracy where power is never honestly criticized from within and dissent is consistently discouraged. As an interactive designer/programmer in the advertising industry, I’ve been mostly tertiary to this decision making process, but I have on occasion seen how the authoritarian nature of some corporate mechanisms can be harmful on a number of levels.
First and foremost, I’m quite simply someone who hates to do something that I find to be illogical or pointless, or the worst reason of all “because I say so”. Over the years, though, I’ve conditioned myself to know what battles to fight in order to maintain a career and “go along to get along”, but my battles usually consisted of merely having to “make the logo bigger”, change this button from blue to red, etc–nothing I’ve ever “gone to the mat” over.
But now that I’ve been on my own freelancing for the past year, this self-conditioning process looks more and more like collective insanity to me.
For instance, a old college friend of mine is now a data-analyst for a major pharmaceutical company. On many occasions he has casually explained how his job is essentially to participate in a highly sophisticated system of targeted payola aimed at getting doctors to prescribe his company’s drug. Never once does it occur to him that his drug may be less effective than his competitors and that it is (in my opinion, at least) fairly amoral for such an aggressive system of coercion of professional medical opinions to be implemented at all. Unfortunately, it’s all about his “team”, not the positive or negative effects of his job or the results of his company’s success upon society.
I deliberately chose “amoral” and let me explain why. The people who are contributing to this destructive system, like my college friend, are not necessarily “immoral”. To me that word means that you know what the right thing is, but you do the opposite deliberately. My faith in humanity is not so shaken as to believe that even a super majority of the people working in corporations and other social institutions are immoral. That would be too painful a world to imagine living in.
I choose to believe that they are merely misguided by people whom they, reasonably or not, consider to be an authority. This creates the means for one bad decision to go VERY FAR, often to fruition, and all because no one had the means or the motivation to say “NO”. It is our job to provide them with the motivation and remind them that they have the means to stand up and put an end to this madness.
We are seeing examples of this now with Scott McClellan stepping forward, and even in great Britain, somewhat reasonable people are displaying the courage it takes to admit they were wrong and vocally challenge the people they previously considered an authority. Stop and think for a moment how hard that can be if it took you a LONG time to realize that you’d been led astray by people you trusted dearly. People like your own parents, or perhaps a church you belonged to, or perhaps even a spouse who steered you towards believing a lie. People who loved you, and whom you loved back dearly. Imagine they all were following the same lie and encouraging you to join in. Should this ever happen to you and you are fortunate enough to see the truth, it will be your job to stand up and say, “Sorry, this goes too far. I have to go with the evidence.”
Many people like these were simply never exposed to the process of questioning authority fully, never given enough chances to practice the art of criticizing their leaders. It is part of the conditioning of submission that we all are subjected to, at least those of you who endured a school system, public or private. I was diagnosed with ADD in the fourth grade, but believe I was just bored and suffer from a powerful compulsion to be free to follow my interests. This led to many many clashes with authority figures with whom I disagreed or was the victim of their dislike towards class clowns. It took me a while to learn how to form an argument and gain the respect I needed to make it in the world and continue my own education once free from the confines of arbitrary assignments that ignored the roots of my arguments.
So back to my point of using amoral. I have been given the gift of understanding the value of criticism in my life by certain authority figures who invited and valued criticism. Some have not been so lucky. They are either paralyzed from offering it to their authority figures, and often these people become very disinclined to accept it from anyone outside of their in group. It is the out-group’s job to refine our criticisms so that they are accepted. And it is important to offer these criticisms with love. I can love an immoral person even if that love is hated, but I can change an amoral one by creating understanding.
As I mentioned above and in other posts, I’ve been acutely aware of my personal relationship to authority figures and a keen observer others’ ever since reading Bob Altemeyer’s long-term psychological study of authoritarian tendencies, The Authoritarians (available as a free pdf). In a super-small nutshell, we all must struggle against our desire to grant certain authorities unquestionable fealty. Authority can be defined as just about anything, a parent, an idea, a religious leader, hell a can of soup. It’s been one of the most enlightening reads I’ve had in my ongoing struggle to understand our ongoing struggles, and most everyone I’ve recommended the book to has tended to agree it changed the way they see the people they perceive to be their opponents. Ironically, the book has become my authority on the value of questioning authority, especially of my in-group.
So while I do agree with the fundamental critiques contained in the film “The Corporation”, I would not necessarily personify them as BEING insane, but rather they are systems which tend to condition people to not question authority. This often leads to people working against their own interest without ever fully realizing it. This is largely accomplished by the mere fact that most large corporations prevent honest and pointed criticism at the bottom from rising to the failing leadership at the top (something that most people would call democracy).
They seem to forget that unions exist merely to get the bosses to sit at a table listen. It’s only their fevered egos that require us to amass such great numbers just to attain their presence, but usually not their respect. I don’t know why this is, other than some people just didn’t have the experiences necessary to understand the value of and invite criticism. When someone says you suck, just see it as an opportunity to either improve, or justify your actions when questioned. Don’t just tell them to shut up.
Perhaps a good regulation would simply be for every employee to be required by law to read independent analysis of their corporation’s behavior. I do believe that we can all only be expected rise to the level of our awareness. Unfortunately, many corporations take an active roll in propagandizing from within and to without.
Well, probably not. At least not until Bush is out of office by democratic means. In any case, I refuse to let the mainstream press or the Democratic leadership say what we can and cannot do. They have a pretty bad track record on standing up when it counts Cough-Iraq-Cough!.
I just want to remind everyone that this is about specific results committed by specific people, who need to be specifically held accountable. It’s not about ideology. It’s not about your fuckin’ team. It’s not even about some lofty notions about how it might effect the election. It’s not even about whether you follow politics or not. If you think this administration should at least face the music and dance, it’s your right to demand it so that Congress can hire a dj. Everyone keeps thinking that war crimes will come about after he’s out of office. That sounds embarrassing to me, like asking the rest of the world to take out our laundry.
Most important of all, it just needs to get done.
It’s about a bunch of guys who are either:
a.) Grossly Incompetent
b.) Massively unlucky
c.) Willful, priggish bosses who only hired guys who kissed their ass and honestly don’t have a clue how badly they have fucked things up.
It’s up to us to show them. That’s the game, guys. Holding our leaders accountable. It’s all we’ve got. They’re not gonna do it. Nevermind all the patriotic platitudes. You don’t need flag pin or a Harvard education to know that our constitution was all about saying “no more kings”–not in this country. HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS is a legal term that ONLY exists for leaders, because it involves crimes so massive that they are impossible to codify, we can only catalog them.
At least gimme a HEARING! He can have a fair trial, unlike the prisoners of Guantannamo Bay and other black sites. Unlike George W. Bush with his secret military tribunals, I believe that if the whole bloody mess were laid out before the world in the open, that the evidence against him will be more than enough to convict him and his enablers even on a jury of his nearest and dearest peers. So we can finally all have one collective gasp! and step away from the abyss.
That’s impeachment, and it its necessary.
Last night Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment.
Please use this link to find your congressional representative’s phone number and call to urge him/her to support this. I did it just now, it literally took less than one minute. All I did was say “I’m a voter in [rep name]’s district, and I very much want him/her to support Kucinich’s impeachment motion.”, then gave my address and hung up. Let me also just add that it felt AWESOME.
Congress WILL NOT MOVE ON THIS unless we demand it. They’re too stupid to realize that a full and open airing of this administrations’ crimes is what this country needs to move forward with our eyes open about the damage that has been done to our national character. Not to mention that these two assholes have a collective approval rating about as high as a hot turd on the sidewalk.
It really boils down to this for me, if lying about a blowjob warrants impeachment, how on EARTH doesn’t lying us into an unnecessary war demand the same treatment?
For those who may think this is an exercise in futility, you should know that Congress lives by the ratio of 1:13000, which means that for every 1 person who contacts them about an issue, they figure there are 12,999 more who care just as much but for whatever reason haven’t bothered to make the call. As we all know politicians are pretty spineless, the only problem is that right now we’re not the ones with our foots on their collective throat. Time to change that.
Just look at the full list of charges, jawdropping:
#1: Creating a secret propaganda campaign to manufacture a false case for war against Iraq
#2 Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression
#3 Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War
#4 Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States
#5 Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression
#6 Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114
#7: Invading Iraq without a declaration of war.
#8: Invading Iraq in violation of the U.N. charter and international law.
#9: Failing to provide troops with body armor and vehicle armor.
#10: Falsifying accounts of US troops deaths and injuries for political purposes
#11: Establishment of permanent military bases in Iraq
#12: Initiating a war against Iraq for control of that nation’s natural resources.
#13: Secret task force for directing national energy policy
#14: Misprision of a felony, misuse and exposure of classified information and cover up (Plame outing)
#15: Providing immunity from prosecution for criminal conduct for contractors in Iraq
#16: Reckless misspending and wasted US tax dollar with Iraq contractors
#17: Illegal detention – detaining indefinitely, and without charge, American citizens and foreign captives (suspension of habeus)
#18: Torture – secretly authorizing and encouraging use of torture, as matter of official policy
#19 Rendition
#20 Imprisoning Children Bush is guilty of impeachable offence arcticle 20, imprisoning children. Has personal and acting through agents has held at least 2,500 children in violation of Geneva convention and the rights of children in armed conflict signed by the US in 2002.
#21 Misleading Congress about threats from Iran
#22. HAS ESTABLISHED A BODY OF SECRET LAWS THROUGH THE OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL. THE YOO MEMORANDUM WAS DECLASSIFIED YEARS AFTER IT SERVED AS LAW UNDER THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH.
#23 Violated Posse Comitatus Act ESTABLISHED PROGRAMS FOR THE USE OF THE MILITARY IN LAW ENFORCEMENT. MUST BE AUTHORIZED BY THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CONGRESS SO THAT THE MILTARY CANNOT BECOME A NATIONAL POLICE FORCE.
#24 Spying on citizens violating 4th Amendment
#25 Directing telecoms to collect databases on US citizens.
#26 Announcing intent to violate laws w/signing statements, and then violating those laws.
#27 Failing to comply with congressional subpoenas, and instructing others to do so.
#28 tampering with free and fair election. Corruption with the administration of justice, False allegations of voter fraud in selected districts, immediately preceding elections. Undermining process.
#29: Conspiracy to violate voting rights act of 1965, Ohio Sec of State 2004-06
#30: Misleading congress and american people in an attemtp to destroy medicare.
#31 Katrina and the failures of gross negligence of the administration.
#32: Misleading congress and the American people. Systematically undermining global climate change. Article 2, Section 3: Personally and through subordinates including the VP, for not protecting property of people vis a vis global climate change thru deception. Failure to ratify Kyoto. Editing reports – 294 edits by a lobbyist to add data which called into question the facts by muddying them. Or diminishing scientific findings.
#33: Repeatedly ignored and failed to respond to high level intelligence warnings of planned terrorist attacks in U.S. prior to 9/11.
Clark warned the president in daily briefings of the threat. Clark was unable to conviene a cabinet level position. Tenet met with the president 40 times to warn of threat. Still no meetings of top officials.
#34: Obstruction into the investigation of 9/11
#35: endangering the health of 9/11 first responders
Filed under: Citizen Journalism, Politics | Tags: Civil Rights, Freedom of Speech, HR 1955, S. 1959
A brief explanation of HR 1995: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill has passed the House and is currently being debated in the Senate.
Part One:
Part Two:
Now someone explain to me how, given the vagueness of the language and the fact that I, being someone who is vehemently opposed to it and will speak out against its passage loudly and often, will not be the target of this bill should it become law. Call your senators now and urge them to oppose this bill’s counterpart in the Senate: S. 1959.
And for those of you who can’t explain this, please take note if I should take a prolonged leave of absence from this blog.
Filed under: Action Items, Net Neutrality, Politics | Tags: Comcast, Common Carrier, Media Ownership, Net Neutrality, Time Warner Cable
Here’s an excellent mini-documentary explaining the importance of preserving network neutrality, and how we must break the cycle of media-ownership that has continually prohibited ordinary people from having a voice. It happened with print, it happened with radio, it happened with television, and if we don’t start making some fucking noise NOW, it will happen to the Internet. It will be a slow, invisible process, and once our power to speak out is diminished, it will be much more difficult to get it back. It’s time to stop being a passive, reactive citizenry and start being proactive about our rights and freedoms.
Please take 5 minutes to call or fax your representative in Congress and urge them to support The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 (HR 5353). Your voice really will make a difference. Learn more here
Filed under: Action Items, Net Neutrality, Politics | Tags: Common Carrier, Net Neutrality, Save The Internet, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, Verizon
Just yesterday I posted a a story about Time Warner rolling out ‘metered’ internet usage. Today we see that the coordinated attack on Net Neutrality is underway. Via Wired:
Comcast will begin testing what the cable concern has described as a “protocol agnostic” approach to managing bandwidth traffic during high-peak periods, Comcast said Tuesday.
Selected customers in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Warrenton, Virginia, are expected to receive e-mails on Wednesday highlighting the program. The 30-day tests are expected to begin Thursday.
On other blogs where I’ve posted this story there’s been some resistance to the idea that metered usage and bandwidth caps directly relate to the issue of network neutrality. My point in sounding the alarm about these policies is that until we have solid regulations protecting net neutrality in place, we should view any attempts to cap or meter usage as the trojan horse that will be the ’slow lane’, which goes right to the heart of net neutrality. Once these caps and limits are endured by the public long enough, without NN regulation, the broadband providers will be free to allow content providers of their choosing to bypass these caps and meters. It’s really not that hard to see the logical conclusion of these telcos actions, absent any legal obligation to remain common carriers.
It simply CANNOT be a coincidence that two of the major telcos are rolling out drastic changes to how we access the internet in the same week. This may not be the knockout blow to net neutrality, but it is certainly the opening bell of what will be a bloody fight. More from the Comcast article:
“Unless you are an extremely heavy user of internet resources (which is not likely) you will not notice any change to your internet experience during this test,” Mitch Bowling, general manager of Comcast online services says in the e-mail. “At the busiest times of the day on our network (which could occur at any time), those very few disproportionately heavy users, who are doing things like conducting numerous or continuous large file transfers, may experience slightly longer response times for some online activities, until the period of network congestion ends.”
The move is designed to set aside complaints that the Philadelphia-based company has been throttling BitTorrent data and other peer-to-peer traffic to manage congestion. Comcast’s practices have been the subject of hearings before the Federal Communications Commission, which is set to announce new rules concerning the concept of net neutrality.
Are you excited by the potential of all the means of independent distribution available to the entertainment community these days? From YouTube to Funny or Die, those who can bring the funny and have the technical skills are no longer obligated to dedicate their lives towards landing that lucrative Hollywood gig in order for the world to appreciate their comic genius.
If you think that the growing potential to bypass the traditional, establishment media distribution channels is a good thing, then you’d better start giving a shit about Net Neutrality because it’s officially under attack as of this week.
Before I get into the specifics of what’s happened this week, let me give a quick primer on Net Neutrality and common carriers for those of you who may be unfamiliar with these concepts. At the most fundamental level, it means that I have a right to have my web content distributed equally with all the other big players out there. With the appropriate regulations in place to protect net neutrality, bandwidth providers such as Time Warner, Verizon and Sprint will not be able to take any action that gives preferential treatment to content providers.
So as I said, as of this week, I believe we’re witnessed the beginning of the end of network neutrality (via the AP):
On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.
Metered billing is an attempt to deal fairly with Internet usage, which is very uneven among Time Warner Cable’s subscribers, said Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president of advanced technology.
Just 5 percent of the company’s subscribers take up half of the capacity on local cable lines, Leddy said. Other cable Internet service providers report a similar distribution.
“We think it’s the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure,” Leddy said.
Metered usage is common overseas, and other U.S. cable providers are looking at ways to rein in heavy users. Most have download caps, but some keep the caps secret so as not to alarm the majority of users, who come nowhere close to the limits. Time Warner Cable appears to be the first major ISP to charge for going over the limit: Other companies warn, then suspend, those who go over.
The caps they are proposing will be tiered at monthly limits of 5GB and 15GB, which may sound like a lot, but when you consider the explosive growth of video streaming, which is nowhere near its peak, this is a ridiculously small amount of bandwidth. Now a lot of people actually think it’s reasonable for ISPs to start charging subscribers more due to this increased strain on the network. As far as this strain goes, I call bullshit. These networks have MAJOR plans in the works to rollout HD streaming content and other VOD services. Do you really think they’re going to limit you from purchasing these services by their arbitrary bandwidth caps?
That’s where net neutrality comes in. Once they’ve rolled out ‘metered’ usage and everyone starts having to keep a constant close watch on their usage, we’re going to start see ‘preferred partners’ hook up with the major bandwidth providers whose content will get to bypass the meters. We as consumers will have absolutely no say in which sites are now off the meter and which ones will stay on, but I can guarantee you that none of them will be the little guys, the independent producers, people I hope like you and me.
I think anyone who’s been paying attention to the current landscape of entertainment and news media would agree that it has been nothing short of a sea change in the power of our media oligopolies. Every major distribution-based media industry is in decline, as people-powered and decentralized distribution means have soared. The point is the media monarchy is scared shitless and it should be, because as long as the Internet remains the true meritocracy that it has been, then they will eventually lose.
Can anyone deny that this medium has proved absolutely vital to the health and vitality of our democracy considering the historic candidacy and campaign of Barack Obama? I could understand these upcharges if these companies were drastically improving service or improving our telecommunications infrastructure, but that does not appear to be the case. Not to mention the fact that they have been making money off of the use of what I consider to be the commons (considering the fact that cable does run under and over public property) and most U.S. residents do NOT have a choice when it comes to broadband. Some may be able to choose between two of the telecom giants, but there don’t seem to be ANY middle or small market ISPs anymore. Not like when I first jumped online in 1996. Just look at the mobile market, there are competitors sure, but they all seem to offer the exact same rate packages. Much like other oligopolized (new word!) industries such as mobile, oil, and pharmaceuticals, there is a revolting amount of collusion to keep prices high so that everybody wins–except the consumers.
Here’s the good news, the end game is still a few years off and we can preempt the telecoms efforts to stifle the true creative, independent spirit of the Internet by contacting our representatives in Congress and demanding that they enact legislation to prevent any violation of ‘network neutrality’ through the conferring of any ‘preferred content provider’ status–EVER. This means that if the telecoms want to roll-out metered usage, they can, but they will not be able to use this as a means of bludgeoning out the competition by allowing a select few to bypass the meter.
Please call or fax your representative in Congress today and ask them to support The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 (HR 5353). I recently learned that when you contact your representative, they tend to go by a ratio of 1:13000. That is they assume that if you care enough to contact them about something that there are 12,999 other voters who care just as much but for whatever reason have not taken the time to make their opinion known. If I’ve inspired you to act, you should also know that the best and most effective means of influencing congress is to fax them. Phone calls don’t leave a paper trail, and letters don’t really get read so much since that anthrax bullshit a few years back. Just take the time to write out why you believe that the Internet should not be fucked with and demand that laws be passed to ensure that our broadband providers remain ‘common carriers’, in much the same way as the post office.
For more information on this topic, visit Save The Internet. And if you are a user of Current.com, please vote up my article.
UPDATE
My concern for this issue is another reason I couldn’t be more delighted that Barack Obama has won the Democratic nomination–he’s a BIG supporter of net neutrality. From an interview with Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch:
I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality. The Internet is the most open network in history. We have to keep it that way. I will prevent network providers from discriminating in ways that limit the freedom of expression on the Internet. Because most Americans only have a choice of only one or two broadband carriers, carriers are tempted to impose a toll charge on content and services, discriminating against websites that are unwilling to pay for equal treatment. This could create a two-tier Internet in which websites with the best relationships with network providers can get the fastest access to consumers, while all competing websites remain in a slower lane. Such a result would threaten innovation, the open tradition and architecture of the Internet, and competition among content and backbone providers. It would also threaten the equality of speech through which the Internet has begun to transform American political and cultural discourse. Accordingly, network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others. This principle will ensure that the new competitors, especially small or non-profit speakers, have the same opportunity as incumbents to innovate on the Internet and to reach large audiences. I will protect the Internet’s traditional openness to innovation and creativity and ensure that it remains a platform for free speech and innovation that will benefit consumers and our democracy.
Filed under: Action Items, Politics | Tags: Common Carrier, Network Neutrality, Save The Internet
NEW YORK (AP) — You’re used to paying extra if you use up your cell phone minutes, but will you be willing to pay extra if your home computer goes over its Internet allowance?
Time Warner Cable Inc. customers — and, later, others — may have to, if the company’s test of metered Internet access is successful.
On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.
Metered billing is an attempt to deal fairly with Internet usage, which is very uneven among Time Warner Cable’s subscribers, said Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president of advanced technology.
Just 5 percent of the company’s subscribers take up half of the capacity on local cable lines, Leddy said. Other cable Internet service providers report a similar distribution.
“We think it’s the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure,” Leddy said.
As one commenter on my current.com story wrote:
This is in no way analogous to cell phone minutes. You’re not inhibiting small businesses or minute heavy companies when charging for minutes on a cellphone, but when you penalize bandwidth, you limit what is possible online and create a tiered system that goes against the egalitarian nature of the Intern
I could understand these upcharges if these companies were drastically improving service or improving our telecommunications infrastructure, but that does not appear to be the case. Not to mention the fact that they have been making money off of the use of what I consider to be the commons (considering the fact that cable does run under and over public property) and most U.S. residents do NOT have a choice when it comes to broadband. Some may be able to choose between two of the telecom giants, but there don’t seem to be ANY middle or small market ISPs anymore. Not like when I first jumped online in 1996. Just look at the mobile market, there are competitors sure, but they all seem to offer the exact same rate packages. Much like other oligopolized (new word!) industries such as mobile, oil, and pharmaceuticals, there is a revolting amount of collusion to keep prices high so that everybody wins–except the consumers.
Can anyone deny that this medium has proved absolutely vital to the health and vitality of our democracy considering the historic candidacy and campaign of Barack Obama? If this sort of metering is allowed to be implemented across the board (as I’m certain it will), it is democracy that will suffer through the diminished usage of sites such as Youtube, Current, and other essential people-powered media. 15gigs ain’t shit when you’re as active a participant in this movement as I tend to be. I also would not be surprised to see the telecoms start to allow users to view select ‘partner’ sites that will be exempt from this metering. It is this stage that will be the undoing of all our hard work to bypass and eradicate the traditional establishment media stranglehold on our socio-political discourse.
If you’d like to learn more about how to stop this trend from continuing, please visit http://www.savetheinternet.com, and if you are a current.com user, please vote up my article.
And to anyone out there who thinks that contacting their reps doesn’t mean shit, I recently learned that when you contact your representative, they tend to go by a ratio of 1:13000. That is they assume that if you care enough to contact them about something that there are 12,999 other voters who care just as much but for whatever reason have not taken the time to make their opinion known.
