You may remember the former Chairman of the FCC – a fella by the name of Michael Powell. You might recall him as the son of Colin Powell who stood in front of the United Nations with a straight face, displayed cartoon depictions of mobile weapons launchers and held up a vial of confectionary sugar, stating, “if this was anthrax, it would really suck. So we must invade Iraq.” Of course, Colin feels really bad about it now, so it’s cool.<\/p>\n
His boy Mikey was appointed to the FCC by our old pal Bill “Let’s Deregulate the Media” Clinton (a bit of what we have to look forward to if we’re “lucky” and don’t have an out-of-the-closet Republican elected) and named Chairman by everybody’s favorite Bush, GW. As Chairman, Mike fought fiercely to eliminate regulation in order to “open up markets” in the wireless and Internet industries. Like all the other lying sacks of shit<\/strike> Republicans and “Libertarians” Powell claims that regulations stand in the way of little companies taking on the industry giants.<\/p>\n
This is why we now have Comcast – the largest cable provider in the US and owner of NBC Universal – poised to take over cable giant Time Warner in order to become the even bigger biggest cable company in America. This is clearly good for consumers, because both companies are routinely ranked by consumers near or atop the list. <\/p>\n
The list of the worst companies in the country, that is.<\/p>\n
No doubt as they get bigger and their profits grow, not only will prices for cable and Internet drop, but connection speeds will improve (perhaps to as much as one-third of what they get in say, Europe and South Korea) and being on hold with customer service will be a pleasure (my suggestion is that they give you a choice of hold music: opera is the default and would be free, but if you’d like to switch to, say, one of your Pandora radio stations, you can do so for a mere 99 cents per minute).<\/p>\n
Of course, that extra money you pay a month for “up to” 20 Mbps will be kind of worthless unless the websites you want to visit are also paying a “premium” for the fast lane from the edge of Comcast’s network to you house. So you can either get content from a service that’s willing to pay the extortion fee to not have their bits choked nearly to death or you can sit and watch “buffering” messages all day when you’re trying to watch what looks like it would be an interesting 5 minute YouTube clip that somebody just posted. Win-win.<\/p>\n
All that needs to happen is to get rid of that pesky Net Neutrality once and for all. And that’s where our fearless Commander-in-Chief comes in.<\/p>\n
You may have noticed that the FCC is basically a place where telecom and cable lobbyists come from or go to. They serve their time making a paltry 5-figure salary in DC (plus whatever kickbacks they can manage) and then become industry lobbyists (for example, Meredith Attwell Baker<\/a> – whose job at the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) is presumbably a step up from the job she originally left the FCC for in 2011 – VP of “Government Affairs” at, you guessed it, Comcast<\/a>). And of course there’s Mikey Powell, who is now President & CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA)<\/a>.<\/p>\n And then there’s our current FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler. An Obama “bundler”<\/a>…<\/p>\n \n…Wheeler raised between $200,000 and $500,000 in the 2008 cycle, and at least half a million dollars for the President’s reelection campaign. Wheeler personally gave $28,500 to the Obama Victory Fund in 2008. In Feb. 2012, he hosted a high-priced fundraiser for the president, where attendees to Washington’s Mayflower hotel forked over between $5,000 to $20,300 to eat lunch and snap pictures with the First Lady.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, as there is no law on the books mandating bundling disclosure, it’s not clear what sources Wheeler tapped to pull together the rest of this cash.<\/p>\n Major broadband providers like Comcast and Verizon also contributed large sums to Obama’s campaign coffers. Influence Explorer reveals that the political committees and employees of the two Internet giants have contributed at least $530,000 and $450,000 respectively.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n …Wheeler actually started out<\/strong>\/ as an industry lobbyist he was a venture capitalist and lobbyist having formerly been, among other things, President of the NCTA and CEO of the CTIA. In fact, this fucker was so great, he was inducted into both the Cable Television and Wireless Halls of Fame<\/a>, prompting President Obama to joke that “…he’s like the Jim Brown of telecom or the Bo Jackson of telecom”<\/a>. <\/p>\n Ha! Funny one, sir!<\/p>\n Not as funny as your pledge to never hire lobbyists, though<\/a>. Now that was a real thigh-slapper.<\/p>\n Of course, the purchasing of the Obama Presidency hasn’t been limited to the telecom industry (looking at you, Timmy Geithner, Eric Holder (Global Crossing), William Lynn (Raytheon), Mark Patterson (Goldman Sachs)…), nor is Obama unique. <\/p>\n Lots of hopey, not much changey. <\/p>\n Sadly, I fear that Net Neutrality is a lost cause – it’s too arcane of a subject to get people worked up over, and since we don’t seem to have a prayer at getting gun control or equal pay or doing anything to slow down climate change and they’re taking away the ability (if not actually the “right”) of people to vote and dismantling laws to try to combat discrimination (‘cuz that was like, so sixties)…. <\/p>\n Well, I just don’t see a free and open Internet being the one thing that will get the unwashed masses riled up enough to go out and do something. Hell, if I’ve learned only one thing from network teevee over the years (at least in this age of “reality TV”), it’s that you can by and large put any crap you want out there and people will sit, numb, watching it. If they don’t like it at first, they’ll get used to it – especially when it’s the “featured” topic on the Today Show every morning.<\/p>\n I just hope NY legalizes pot so I can get as comfortably numb as possible.<\/p>\n If you want to know why you should give a shit about this, here’s a good article<\/a> to read. Unless you live in Washington State or Colorado, in which case I’d just do a few bongs and go back to bed.<\/p>\n