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"74 Democrats sold you out to AT&T, Verizon and Comcast"


Michael Collins

74 Democrats signed a joint letter to the FCC supporting internet throttling by Verizon, ATT and Comcast. Throttling lets carriers slow or block internet traffic. This is a clear attack on net neutrality.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just endorsed net neutrality. But The Money Party is busy buying votes. Here's a Top Ten list of the biggest rake-offs by the 74 Democrats. They had a total take of $2.8 million with an average of $37,000 a piece from industry sources and lobbyists. No telling how many jobs, trips, and other favors were provided. The Money Party is nothing, if not thorough.

Let your member of Congress know how you feel. Complaint letter to Congress

Why would the major carriers want to control internet traffic by slowing it down or blocking it on occasion?

We'll call it the BP syndrome. They're excessively cheap. In the good old days, the original internet (Telenet's public data network) built network capacity based on "the Mother's Day" principle. The network was built to tolerate peak loads with the same level of service it normally provided, which was excellent.

Since the cable and telephone companies bought up the original network providers, a race to the bottom has begun in terms of quality of service. Instead of maximum quality at all times, the new motto is, "let them eat crap." If the network is too busy, just cut off the public in favor of the higher paying corporate and government customers.

When does the advertised internet speed ever match actual throughput? Test it yourself.

We have a decrepit business and government elite. They're not even smart enough to figure out that the internet is the new third rail of politics.

Let them know that the old bait-and-switch no longer works. We're glad that Speaker Pelosi endorses net neutrality but we expect near universal support from the party.

Spread the word.

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Michael Collins June 5, 2010 - 11:54pm
Michael Collins's diary | printer friendly version | digg
( categories: Net Neutrality )

Well, is there anything remotely surprising...

...about this? Everybody who is anybody is on the take.
How anybody can say, with a straight face, that the U.S. is a democracy is just beyond me! The whole world view is a spun fantasy that has zero credibility. Everything is spin; here, there, and everywhere.
I live in a small village (in rural Thailand) and even our headman spins the reality he needs to be real.
That's one of many reasons I know the whole world is permeated with this noxious shit, spin; and it's why I'm weaning myself off of the internet and all news.
If one believes being informed is of paramount importance in todays world, that one is already doomed.
Celsius 233/451F fading away into the real soup.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them,and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows,or with both~FDouglas

Celsius 233 June 6, 2010 - 9:10am
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men as they are

"We must make the best of the men as they are, since we cannot have them as we wish."
- George Washington
(from the book "1776" by David McCullough)

Brendan June 6, 2010 - 9:33am
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Hold on a minute...

it's why I'm weaning myself off of the internet and all news.

I understand the frustration, but cutting yourself from ALL available news (especially since you are in rural Thailand) I think is not going to help.

We need people like you to stay in the fight and protest with us, not to run away.

You can certainly choose which websites you want to read, and make you views apparent to those you need to. I think that's better than cutting yourself off from ALL news.

yogi-one June 6, 2010 - 1:11pm
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I appreciate your POV, but...

...would you play in a game you knew was rigged? The last 8 of my 65 years has shown, blatantly I might add, that the powers in control no longer even try to hide the fact "we" will be allowed just so much freedom and not one grain more. If you haven't read my signature, you might give it a glance.
Frankly, I'm disgusted with my fellow U.S. citizens for their cowardly behavior.
As to running away; did the people who left Germany to escape the Nazis' run away? In a sense yes, but their actions look pretty smart and forward thinking in hindsight.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them,and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows,or with both~FDouglas

Celsius 233 June 6, 2010 - 9:22pm
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Juan Cole on net neutrality

Juan Cole gives a very clear explanation of the importance of net neutrality
here

Net Neutrality is the principle that my blog is inexpensive to publish and to access, so that I and my readers have the same advantages in this regard as a corporation would. If the Right Wing ever manages to scale the internet and make me pay $70,000 a year to put up this blog and have it easily available to my readers, it will kill it and would signal a return to push media like the networks. And a push-media world where corporations own the Web and can push at us what they please, including their weird ideas about political reality, really would be Orwellian and dangerous.

It is an issue that can be difficult to explain well. And if you are not deeply involved in the internet, it can be difficult to understand. This explanation by Juan Cole helped to clarify the issue for me.

Brendan June 6, 2010 - 9:17am
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Excellent

He says it well. Thanks for quoting this.

These internet carriers are just plain cheap and lazy. Build the network the way a serious engineer would. That's the first principle. Then KEEP it universally available and affordable, as it is now.

Those in charge would just as soon pay us nothing for our work and charge us as much as legally possible to express our differences with their master plan. And the Democrats in the House, my goodness. That's 30% of the total. Pelosi needs to invoke the whip function.

When a good time turns around
You must whip it Devo

Michael Collins June 6, 2010 - 9:24am
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thank you

Thanks for alerting me to the fact that my congressman was one of the representatives who signed this letter. Now I get to write him a letter!

Brendan June 6, 2010 - 9:46am
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Well, that was fun

Thanks for making it easy to tell those scumbags what I REALLY think.

Also thanks for the easy speedtest link, I bookmarked it for frequent use.

So far I have cut off my TV. I now have the Comcast internet-only solution. If I want to watch TV, I do it online. If I need a movie, I have netflix.

Truly, in today's world, if you have a laptop, you have everything you need.

I have bookmarked all my congress critters' contact pages. It makes it easy to send them my opinion. It's the most effective action I have at this point to counteract corruption.

Corruption works when it can be hidden from the public. Websites like these make sure what they do is publicly viewable. Therefore, a very effective technique is to tell them directly you see what they are doing. Tell them you are tracking who they get money from.

Tell them you think their actions constitute an attack on the principles of our free country, and therefore you will consider them an enemy when it comes time to vote or contribute.

So make it clear you see what they are doing, you think it's immoral, and your actions at election time will reflect that.

If a congress critter suddenly gets 10,000 emails like that, believe me, it attracts their attention.

This is exactly how we have stopped them before. They came to Seattle to discuss this issue a few years ago. Big mistake. They were met by massive protests. All local independent radio covered the event and they got roundly hammered. Our buddies at the Stranger were there and skewered them as well. Letters to the editor at the big newspapers were smackdowns of corporate media corruption.

That's the kind of citizen response it takes.

Throwing your arms up in despair and running away is useless. They'll find you, and when they do they'll charge the hell out of you for breathing the air, drinking the water, and taxing your right to exist, if they can get away with it.

Don't let them do it.

yogi-one June 6, 2010 - 1:32pm
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That's a nice link, isn't it

"Man wouldn't pay us if he didn't have to." Chris Rock

As long as there are enough opportunities to gouge, the elite will pursue their schemes. But the internet is the peoples' network, developed and funded by the government at the start and at key stages along the way. The telephone and cable companies that own the local access facilities add no value, none. They were just vultures in the right place with the cash at the right time. They get broken up at the same time as the banks if we win the big one. Otherwise, it's eternal resistance on a massive scale to keep this place away from their clutches.

It's interesting to imagine a corporate controlled internet. There would be a left there, a faux left with quibblers. But the free thinkers wouldn't be invited. We're the riffraff, the masses who won't be house broken, those without grants; living in an un-gated community; people with the most important jobs in the country, citizens!

I have FIOS internet (10Mbps download instead of the 15 promised...at 3:00 am) plus movies. The selection sucks. I'm following your lead and using my Netflix account.

Michael Collins June 6, 2010 - 4:45pm
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Thanks RawStory.com

Thanks to The Raw Story for linking to this story on your front page!!!

Michael Collins June 7, 2010 - 2:12am
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And Digg

Welcome diggers!

I am reposting the following from the Digg Comments. Hat tip to Tiak.

The List (it isn't in the article):

Bobby Bright (AL-02)
Mike Ross (AR-04)
Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-01), Ed Pastor (AZ-04), Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-8)
Dennis Cardoza (CA-18), Jim Costa (CA-20), Laura Richardson (CA-37), Joe Baca (CA-43), Loretta Sanchez (CA-47)
Allen Boyd (FL-02), Corrine Brown (FL-03), Alcee Hastings (FL-23), Suzanne Kosmas (FL-24)
Sanford D Bishop, Jr. (GA-02), John Barrow (GA-12), David Scott (GA-13)
Leonard Boswell (IA-03), Wally Minnick (ID-01), Bobby Rush (IL-01), Debbie Halvorson (IL-11)
Baron P Hill (IN-09)
Dennis Moore (KS-03)
Charlie Melancon (LA-03)
Frank Kratovil, Jr. (MD-01), Dutch Ruppersberger (MD-2), Elijah Cummings (MD-07)
Gary Peters (MI-9)
William Lacy Clay Jr (MO-01), Russ Carnahan (MO-03)
Travis Childers (MS-01), Bennie G Thompson (MS-02), Gene Taylor (MS-04)
G. K. Butterfield (NC-01), Heath Shuler (NC-11)
John Adler (NJ-3), Albio Sires (NJ-13)
Harry Teague (NM-2)
Tim Bishop (NY-01), Gregory Meeks (NY-06), Joseph Crowley (NY-07), Ed Towns (NY-10), Yvette Clarke (NY-11), Michael McMahon (NY-13), Scott Murphy (NY-20), Bill Owens (NY-23), Michael Arcuri (NY-24), Daniel Maffei (NY-25)
Steve Driehaus (OH-01), Charlie Wilson (OH-06), Marcia Fudge (OH-11), Zachary T. Space (OH-18)
Dan Boren (OK-02)
Kurt Schrader (OR-05)
Robert Brady (PA-01), Chaka Fattah (PA-02), Kathleen Dahlkemper (PA-03), Jason Altmire (PA-04), Christopher Carney (PA-10), Allyson Schwartz (PA-13), Tim Holden (PA-17)
Lincoln Davis (TN-04), John Tanner (TN-08)
Al Green (TX-09), Ruben Hinojosa (TX-15), Charlie Gonzalez (TX-20), Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23), Solomon Ortiz (TX-27), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Gene Green (TX-29), Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)
Glenn Nye (VA-02)
Rick Larsen (WA-02)
Nick Rahall (WV-03)

Gannon June 7, 2010 - 3:16am
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And a special thanks to dulieu

For all those redits and diggs!!!

Michael Collins June 7, 2010 - 2:13am
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