F.C.C. Backs Fast Lanes For Web Traffic

We, as a nation are too stupid to have good governance so we get what we deserve.
When big money/corps have most of the influence of course we're going to end up with a govt. that screws the average person. The intelligence of the avg. voter has nothing to do with it.

We're living in the new Gilded Age so things are likely to get worse before they get better but historically this has all happened before so while anger is perfectly justified Libertarianism/Accelerationism/Anarchism/Apathy are certainly not.
 
When big money/corps have most of the influence of course we're going to end up with a govt. that screws the average person. The intelligence of the avg. voter has nothing to do with it.

We're living in the new Gilded Age so things are likely to get worse before they get better but historically this has all happened before so while anger is perfectly justified Libertarianism/Accelerationism/Anarchism/Apathy are certainly not.

Its not like corporations are hiring hit squads or kidnapping politicians and bureaucrat's kids. You can't buy something that's not for sale.

And who holds the cards. Politician does the right thing here, he doesn't get some dollars from comcast but he has several other places to get money from. Company does the right thing, for example Netflix doesn't drop a wad of cash on Congress, they go out of business.

Naive to believe corruption always come from without.

And part of the problem is that a party will protect their own unless its really really bad. Largely because tossing the candidate out in the final election usually means switching the seat to the other party. If they throw them out at primary time, like they should, the seat goes up for grabs with a chance the party might lose it. So the party faithful start to circle the wagons. And that's assuming they're just not trying to hide and protect their own corruption.
 
Its not like corporations are hiring hit squads or kidnapping politicians and bureaucrat's kids.
Didn't say they were or that was necessary for the rich/corps to get what they want. Why would you think that was necessary anyways? History has shown time in and time out spy/assassin stuff isn't necessary to corrupt a govt.

Hell that is whole point of the book review I linked. That economist pretty much proved, and laid it all out in black and white, that concentrated wealth eventually results in concentrated power which eventually corrupts any govt. Seriously that guy will probably win a Nobel for his work and you should really read that review, which summarizes the book, or better yet read the book yourself.

Naive to believe corruption always come from without.
Quote me where I said this, thanks.

If they throw them out at primary time, like they should, the seat goes up for grabs with a chance the party might lose it. So the party faithful start to circle the wagons. And that's assuming they're just not trying to hide and protect their own corruption.
The problem with this line of thinking is that you're assuming that there will be a good or better alternative candidate come primary time.

That doesn't always happen.

Lately, as in the last few election cycles, I'd say it hasn't been happening at all. The alternative candidates given are all either as bad or worse than the previous guy.

From both parties. 3rd party voting is usually presented as 'throwing your vote away' which has become a sort of self fulfilling prophecy and as a result there really are no viable 3rd parties in the US. Nor are there likely to be.

So many either give in to apathy or hold their nose and vote for the lesser evil of the devil they know, or at least think they know. That is the major reason why incumbents tend to get re-elected.
 
Yea he campaigned on all sorts of stuff. If Campaign Obama was President Obama I and probably most other Americans would like him a lot more.

Unfortunately President Obama is pretty inept and a piss poor negotiator to say the least. Not to mention far right of Campaign Obama policy wise.
 
Didn't say they were or that was necessary for the rich/corps to get what they want. Why would you think that was necessary anyways? History has shown time in and time out spy/assassin stuff isn't necessary to corrupt a govt.

Hell that is whole point of the book review I linked. That economist pretty much proved, and laid it all out in black and white, that concentrated wealth eventually results in concentrated power which eventually corrupts any govt. Seriously that guy will probably win a Nobel for his work and you should really read that review, which summarizes the book, or better yet read the book yourself.


Quote me where I said this, thanks.


The problem with this line of thinking is that you're assuming that there will be a good or better alternative candidate come primary time.

That doesn't always happen.

Lately, as in the last few election cycles, I'd say it hasn't been happening at all. The alternative candidates given are all either as bad or worse than the previous guy.

From both parties. 3rd party voting is usually presented as 'throwing your vote away' which has become a sort of self fulfilling prophecy and as a result there really are no viable 3rd parties in the US. Nor are there likely to be.

So many either give in to apathy or hold their nose and vote for the lesser evil of the devil they know, or at least think they know. That is the major reason why incumbents tend to get re-elected.

There was an exhaustive study that just came out recently, it confirmed scientifically that the US is not a democracy but an oligarchy:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

Got a juicy selected quote from here:
http://techblogmix.blogspot.com/2014/04/study-finds-us-is-oligarchy-not.html

"Researchers from Princeton University and Northwestern University have concluded, after extensive analysis of 1,779 policy issues, that the U.S. is in fact an oligarchy and not a democracy. What this means is that, although 'Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance,' 'majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts.' Their study (PDF), to be published in Perspectives on Politics, found that 'When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.'"

Near-zero, statistically non-significant impact. Nuff said.
 
I can't wait for the day that I have to website shop like I'm supposed to channel shop, this war has been going on up here too. Fortunately we've had two prime ministers in a row that have been willing to shit all over the idea, but it's a matter of time before a shill gets in and we're in the same boat.


It only looks moronic if you haven't been paying attention to what Obama does vs what he says. Despite being painted as a socialist radical Muslim by many media sources his actual economic and business policies tend to be right of Reagan.

This guy's trickle down bullshit is beyond belief. I'm not American but I've seen the numbers on the US recovery, all that 'stimulus' is pumped into the top echelon of society and promptly being invested overseas for a quick return. Stimulus is an important part of a recovery along with austerity, but only when it's actually used to build infrastructure that will yield rewards for a country in the future. This shit is being used to build roads and factories in China.
 
Near-zero, statistically non-significant impact. Nuff said.
Yup. That was another good study too. I still like using the other linked book + book review better so since that addresses the root cause of our oligarchy (wealth concentration) and is more easily accessible to the layman.

At least the summary is anyways.

The book is very good but very dense reading. Worth having as a reference for the foot notes alone IMO.
 
Yea he campaigned on all sorts of stuff. If Campaign Obama was President Obama I and probably most other Americans would like him a lot more.

Unfortunately President Obama is pretty inept and a piss poor negotiator to say the least. Not to mention far right of Campaign Obama policy wise.

Very true.

There are two main reasons for the huge differences between campaign Obama and Presidency Obama. One is entirely his fault, and the other isn't.

1.) Early on in his presidency (and even now to a certain extent) he was so eager to appear like a consensus builder striking deals across the aisle, that he presented "pre-negotiated" bills, not realizing you don't do that in Washington, so his centrist proposals were hammered for compromises from the right until they were center-right deals(called Socialist by the right wing nutters btw.) instead of proposing the true Democratic proposal as a starting point, and winding up with something center left.

Lets face it, early Obama presidency represents a HUGE lost opportunity. Democrats had the house, the senate and the Whitehouse and could have pushed through a true single payer universal healthcare system, but they blew it.

2.) The party of No. A lot of his accomplishments have been stifled due to unprecedented obstructionism. it didn't matter if it was going to help the country, was a good compromise, or even if it was something they outright believed in, they weren't going to let Obama get a win at any cost.

This combination too a presidency with a lot of promise and turned it into a weak democratic presidency.

I'm not sure I fully agree with the assessment, but the prevailing view around here is that people voted for an FDR New Deal style candidate, and instead got a Reagan in sheep's clothing. A milquetoast corporatist, if you will.
 
We need another online blackout like with SOPA/PIPA. We need sites to post on their home pages about net neutrality regardless of whether they are a news site or blog or even an online store. We need people to cancel there internet for at least a month and say that the cause is because of the lack of net neutrality. We need people to hand write letters to as many officials as they can, send emails to as many officials as they can, and(not or) sign as many petitions as they can.

If all that doesn't work, then grab your pitchfork.
 
so toss a petition on whitehouse.org to either gut the fcc and replace it with people that would do what the damn court said that was all the needed to do was reclassify broadband as a telco and resend it or quit yer bitching. armchair bitching about shit you dont like does not change a damn thing. you want results it requires action.
 
This guy's trickle down bullshit is beyond belief. I'm not American but I've seen the numbers on the US recovery, all that 'stimulus' is pumped into the top echelon of society and promptly being invested overseas for a quick return. Stimulus is an important part of a recovery along with austerity, but only when it's actually used to build infrastructure that will yield rewards for a country in the future. This shit is being used to build roads and factories in China.


Keynes style stimulus can work but not in the way it has been implemented. It really is the only tool we have to fight economic downturn. Austerity is not the solution. Austerity during a recession is economic suicide.

Recent stimulus has been all about low interest rates, but this has just been abused by the finance industry, taking money for nothing from the fed and turning around and investing it treasury bonds. Absuive 0 risk profit at the expense of the tax payer... So none of this cheap money was making it out into the economy and stimulating it, it was all staying in the pockets of wealthy all street investors.

Quantitative Easing tried to correct this, but has been too little too late.

What we really needed was more traditional stimulus, like we had in the very beginning of Obama's presidency. Infrastructure projects, energy projects, military investments, etc. etc. but the "Party of No" in congress put a stop to this, showing again, that they;d rather hurt America if it only results in a loss for Obama.
 
Zarathustra[H];1040790070 said:
There are two main reasons for the huge differences between campaign Obama and Presidency Obama. One is entirely his fault, and the other isn't.
Part of being a competent President is accurately assessing and managing Congress to get the policies you campaigned on passed. From this perspective so far Bush has been a more competent President than Obama. BUSH.

Zarathustra[H];1040790070 said:
I'm not sure I fully agree with the assessment, but the prevailing view around here is that people voted for an FDR New Deal style candidate, and instead got a Reagan in sheep's clothing. A milquetoast corporatist, if you will.
Yea I'd say that is about right. Back in late 2007 when I knew nothing about him I was hopeful but the more I learned the more I became skeptical of him. For a while I still hoped he would be better for the country than Bush was but overall so far I'd say he is about as bad.
 
Zarathustra[H];1040790087 said:
but the "Party of No" in congress put a stop to this, showing again, that they;d rather hurt America if it only results in a loss for Obama.
FDR era WPA-esque stimulus is definitely the way to go IMO but when he had the chance to pass stimulus that wasn't what he went for. Half of his last stimulus was tax cuts, by his choosing, and most of the remainder ended up getting used to plug holes in states' budgets during the worst of the bust.

The 'Party of No' is a big problem...but so is Obama himself. Remember the guy tried twice to get Social Security cuts passed via Simpson-Bowles and the only reason it didn't work was none of the commission members wanted to commit political suicide the 1st time and the 2nd time the TP'ers screwed the pooch.
 
The American government sucks corporate cock, and then spits it in the face of the American citizen. What an purely evil entity our government has become.
 
The gov is going f*&^ this up just like everything else they do. Anyone heard of Obamacare?
 
Back
Top