It's good to be back in the saddle. I'm still hacking and I sound terrible, but I'm back to moving dogies along. This flu business–I don't recommend it.
And item one on the agenda is something I've been meaning to get to since before I got ill. Remember the issue of "net neutrality"?–basically, the longstanding notion that ISPs cannot discriminate about content via charging different rates for the delivery of different kinds of content. Which is so that the people who see evidence of strange civilizations in NASA photos from Mars get equal access, right alongside your favorite local band and bigshots like CNN. It's what really enables the Internet to be the weird and wonderful "place" it is, and what allows for equal access to everything by trolls, geniuses, malcontents and entrepreneurs alike. It's what prevents the Internet from becoming like the teevee, a contest between gigantic, bloated "content providers" with no imagination but lots of ad revenue.
So what do you think happens when the FCC says, in effect, "We're going to protect net neutrality against those who would dismantle it in favor of rate schemes"? Pat yourself on the back if you guessed a group of Republicans tried to block it via an appropriations bill.
The doublespeak is incredible. Net neutrality, of course, fosters all sorts of content from all sorts of providers, and provides an exceptionally level playing field for new ideas–a very free version of the free market that Republicans usually say will solve economic woes, tooth decay and religious strife. It is, as they say, a no-brainer that net neutrality is a very good thing for innovators. So that's why Kay Bailey Hutchison (who's been driving me crazy since around the time I was in high school in Fort Worth) said this:
"I am deeply concerned by the direction the FCC appears to be heading. Even during a severe downturn, America has experienced robust investment and innovation in network performance and online content and applications. For that innovation to continue, we must tread lightly when it comes to new regulations."
It sounds like she supports net neutrality, only she doesn't. Apparently, the FCC's preventing regulation of content via pricing equals "new regulation" to Hutchison and friends. Makes your head hurt. She's either thick as a whale omelet or being deeply disingenuous. She's since backed off, but promises to be back on the issue.
What a joy it would be if she got her way–it's very easy to imagine what we'd be in for. Say you love to read Thom Hartmann for your in-depth news. Verizon or AT&T might well choose to slow down your access to Hartmann if he can't pay for high-speed delivery. But over at NBC, they can pay for higher-speed delivery, so getting corporate news is much faster and easier. You have to work ever harder to get news from other sources. That leads nowhere good in terms of diversity of information and opinion. It seems esoteric, and it's hardly a sexy issue, but it's a fight worth fighting.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the front line of this battle.
UPDATE:
Well, perhaps the more accurate statement is that the EFF is on the front line, and not alone. Clearly, commenter Neal below brings up a salient point regarding Free Press.
(Sorry about the WWI humor for the audience of 1 1/2 who'll get it. Hey, it's my blog…)
ADDITIONAL:
Paul Krugman: "…ever since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has been dominated by radicals — ideologues and/or apparatchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not accept anyone else’s right to govern."
He's onto something there, something that touches on the nature of what currently passes for "debate."
This is, as the clever like to say, a meme: Democrats are often weak debaters even when they're right, while the Republicans place dynamite under every rhetorical bridge, no matter if they might need the bridge someday.
