To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one’s responsibility as a free man.
From an essay “The Challenge of Fear” published in 1967 by Alan Stewart Paton, a white South African writer, liberal political activist, and author of Cry, The Beloved Country (which has been made into a movie twice – in 1951 and in 1995, and into a Broadway musical.)
[FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell at a Tech Policy Summit. Picture by TechPolicySummit used under a Creative Commons license.]
[digg-reddit-me]Yesterday marked the opening of the political battle over net neutrality.
To this date, all the talk of “serieses of tubes” and the sporadic and localized attempts to create a tiered internet have been mere skirmishes.
But yesterday, Robert McDowell, an FCC Commissioner, attempted to push net neutrality into the political fray during an election season – and unleashed the first coherent attack on net neutrality. To date, the arguments of opponents of net neutrality have focused on two fronts: pure incoherence (see Ted Stevens) and scapegoating “pirates.” ((AAAAAARGH!))
McDowell attempted to attack net neutrality (which has not been an especially polarizing or partisan issue to date) in a way that was both clever and dishonest – by linking net neutrality to the Fairness Doctrine reviled by conservatives.
(Because I feel there is a lot to explore with this topic, I’ve divided it up into three section – a synopsis of the situation/timeline; a more in-depth explanation; and an explanation of why it is so dishonest to equate the Fairness Doctrine and Net Neutrality.)
The situation:
The Politics:
Obama is in favor of net neutrality.
McCain thinks it’s all confusing ((His exact quote is: “I go back and forth on the issue.)) and claims he doesn’t know what his position is (though he has made definitive statements opposing it.)
The Democrats are generally in favor of net neutrality.
It has not been a big issue for Republicans, but a few have come out against it (see Ted Stevens.) The conservative base hates the Fairness Doctrine though with a passion.
Since the idea occured to them: Big internet companies want to charge more for customers to access certain internet sites, or to allow certain sites to have priority and to slow down others.
October 2007: The Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank funded by companies opposed to net neutrality, publishes a report explaining that a good way to attack net neutrality is to call it “The Fairness Doctrine for the Internet.”
Spring 2008: Internet providers begin experiments with tiered pricing and other anti-net-neutrality practices.
June 2008: A Republican Congressmen introduces a bill to outlaw the Fairness Doctrine (which has been illegal since the 1980s).
Later in June 2008: A conservative reporter publishes a story which alleges that Nancy Pelosi is considering reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.
August 12, 2008: An FCC Commissioner says that net neutrality could lead to the regulation of political speech on the internet, as if it’s the Fairness Doctrine for the internet.
The Drudge Report publicizes the speech with the scare headline:
FCC Commissioner: Return of 'Fairness Doctrine' Could Control Web Content...
Next: Conservative talk radio hosts begin talking about how net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine for the internet. Conservative bloggers agree and publicize this as well.
Then: These conservatives begin to raise the issue in attacks on Obama, liberals, etcetera. Progressives and liberals defend net neutrality.
And then: Independent-minded people and journalists who haven’t been paying attention to this issue finally notice now that conflicts are arising. Journalists cover the issue giving “both sides” and independents throw up their hands, unable to pick a side.
And: Conservatives mount a campaign attacking Democrats. Even those conservatives who support net neutrality are silent because they’re happy for any issue on which they can hit Democrats and which they can use to fundraise.
Finally, January 2009: After the election, Democrats attempt to pass net neutrality legislation. A grass-roots structure has been created to oppose them, and many Republicans have publicly committed to oppose it. An obvious policy choice becomes a struggle to enact.
This is how public opinion is manipulated. This is how our political system is corrupted as the obvious and clear policy is shrouded in spin and the consensus is replaced by deliberate polarization.
The backstory
The Fairness Doctrine (which required companies that licensed public airwaves “to present controversial issues of public importance in a manner deemed by the FCC to be honest, equitable, and balanced”) had been considered a key impediment to a conservative agenda after many conservatives came to believe that that the media played a key role in their eventual defeat as they fought against the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s and anti-war movement in the late 1960s. They believed that the media was essentially liberal and that the battling liberal and conservative opinions that were forced onto the airwaves because of the Fairness Doctrine merely ended up legitimizing the inherent liberal bias of the news itself rather than effectively getting across conservative viewpoints. After legal challenges beginning in the late 1960s, the Fairness Doctrine was finally abolished in 1984. This led directly to the right-wing talk radio boom in the late 1980s – from Rush Limbaugh to Bill O’Reilly to Sean Hannity. This talk radio boom was an essential part of the creation of the right-wing echo chamber and conservative successes that followed, beginning with the 1994 Gingrich revolution. Without the end of the Fairness Doctrine and the launch of talk radio, even Newt Gingrich acknowledges that the Contract With America would not have been possible.
This history is not well known among liberals – but it is common knowledge among the millions of right-wing radio listeners. And there are many such radio listeners. Rush Limbaugh’s audience alone is estimated to number over 20 million a week (and his recent contract extension has him making $50 million a year until 2016). After the 2004 election, many Democrats, trying to re-group and understand the Republican dominance of the ideological debate since the 1980s, saw the attacks on the Fairness Doctrine as an essential part of the Republican strategy take control of the political debate. (Democrats John Kerry, John Edwards, Dick Durbin, and others have all made positive comments about the Fairness Doctrine, although none has declared explicit support for it’s return.)
This June, John Gizzi of Human Events magazine (which has been spouting conservative propaganda since 1944) reported that Nancy Pelosi was in favor of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. This revelation – though not picked up by the mainstream media – echoed through the conservative blogosphere and talk radio energizing a dispirited conservative movement.
Putting aside policy considerations, the Fairness Doctrine is as anathema to conservatives as the tiered internet is to the web-savvy. They see it as a threat to their power, to free speech, and as an attempt to marginalize them and their politics.
Which is why McDowell’s comments today are so savvy. By equating the Fairness Doctrine with net neutrality, he is attempting to polarize the public away from a consensus in favor of net neutrality into two competing camps. This is not all McDowell’s genius idea. The Progress and Freedom Foundation (PFF) published a paper in October 2007 laying out this exact argument titled Net Neutrality: A Fairness Doctrine for the Internet (PDF). The PFF of course is an “independent-minded” organization and think tank bankrolled by Comcast, AT&T, Clear Channel, Time Warner, and Microsoft among other enormous companies that stand to profit from opposing both the Fairness Doctrine and net neutrality.
What struck me when reading McDowell’s description of net neutrality as a kind of Fairness Doctrine for the internet was how off the comparison was – and I knew immediately that it was either the result of idiocy similar to Ted Stevens’s tubes or a deliberate attempt to mislead the public about net neutrality. After finding this white paper above and tracing the history of how the Fairness Doctrine suddenly and conveniently became a political issue in this electoral cycle – it seems clear that this is part of a Republican attempt to energize their base in opposition to net neutrality and find an issue on which to attack the Democrats come November and most important, to boost fund raising among those companies that oppose net neutrality in the meantime.
Which is why I say: The battle over net neutrality has been joined.
The forces that oppose net neutrality are now attempting to break up the bipartisan coalition that has supported efforts to legislate net neutrality. They are finally advancing serious (if dishonest) arguments against it. With the Democrats likely to expand their majority in Congress and the frontrunner for the presidency a Democrat who has been a vocal advocate of net neutrality, this is the big corporations’ only chance to push net neutrality through.
If you’re wondering about McCain’s position on net neutrality, he’s not sure. He told Brian Lehrer of WNYC that he “goes back and forth on the issue” – although conservative sites have reported that he flat-out opposes it. Of course, McCain still doesn’t know how to “get online by [himself].” Given John McCain’s recent history of giving up principled positions in order to win over the right-wing, I think it’s a safe bet that a President McCain would finally figure out his position on the issue of net neutrality to the detriment of all internet users.
Why Net Neutrality is Very Different from the Fairness Doctrine
While the Fairness Doctrine forced broadcasters using the public airwaves to include dissenting opinions when discussing controversial issues, net neutrality prohibits internet service providers from discriminating based on content. It’s comparing bananas to strawberries. Both involve government regulation. Both involve content. Both involve media. One forces the media to add content they would not otherwise. The other prohibits those delivering the content to discriminate and favor some content over others.
This inherent openness is widely described as the core strength of the internet. It allows dissenting voices to be heard. It allows a more free market to emerge. It is one of the essential characteristics of the architecture of the internet.
The Fairness Doctrine, despite a vogue among certain Democrats who have flirted coyly with the idea recently, seems outdated in this world with far greater media options. It was designed for a world in which the national media was dominated by three television stations and dissenting opinions could be quashed merely by ignoring them. Lawrence Lessig, a great proponent of net neutrality, has said that in today’s media environment, he believes that the Fairness Doctrine is unconstitutional. Barack Obama, another liberal and a strong supporter of net neutrality, has also indicated he is opposed to reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine.
Net neutrality and the Fairness Doctrine are entirely seperate and distinct. The Republican efforts to confuse the public on this issue have begun. Stay on the lookout – for you can bet this isn’t the end of this campaign.
[digg-reddit-me]To try to get him on stage at the Democratic National Convention…
And I think that’s a great idea.
Join the Facebook group “The Committee to Have Stephen Colbert Speak at the Democratic Convention.” Email the Democratic Convention at [email protected]. If the Barack Obama site administrators ever approve my request to start this group on myBarackObama.com, then you can also join that group of the same name as the Facebook group.
Do I think we can get Colbert a speaking role? I don’t know.
Do I think it would be awesome if we could? Yes.
Would Colbert give one of the best speeches of the convention? Hell yea.
[digg-reddit-me]In dangerous times, we cannot let the larger issues out of sight:
The day to day grind of this campaign – months and months of fights over demographics, over gaffes, over lobbyists, over media bias – has distracted most of us from the essential issues at stake.
The essential choice we face is whether or not our country is going in the right direction.
There is an economic component to this – which will rightfully take up much of the country’s attention in the next few months, and between McCain and Obama, the economic differences are stark.
Perhaps more important is the question of whether or not America should embrace it’s current role as an imperial power, as a neo-empire. McCain clearly accepts this view. One of his foreign policy advisors has explicitly accepted the American empire. Another McCain advisor explained how McCain is planning on creating a League of Democracies to destroy the United Nations and marginalize Russia, quite possibly provoking a new Cold War ((N. B. Fareed Zakaria is not an Obama surrogate as this YouTube video claims but a journalist for Newsweek with his own show in PBS.)) . McCain has said that withdrawing from Iraq – which is what the Iraqi prime minister is requesting of us – would be a surrender to our enemies. (He still doesn’t seem to have noticed that many of our enemies are warring amongst themselves – Sunni extremists, Shia extremists, Al Qaeda, Iranian factions.) At the same time, he has threatened war with Iran while claiming it is naive to consider meeting with any Iranian leaders. (McCain never mentions the candlelight vigils in Tehran after September 11 or Iran’s efforts to come to a comprehensive settlement of all issues between America and Iran immediatly afterwards that were ignored using the same justification McCain now uses to avoid dealing with Iran.) Instead, he jokes “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran…)
After the last eight years, we simply cannot risk a continuation of the same reckless, belligerent, argument-losing, ideological and deceptive foreign policy of [the Bush administration.] From his knee-jerk Cold War posture over Georgia to his Rovian campaign tactics, McCain is simply too close to this disastrous record to contemplate… McCain’s trigger-happy temperament, shallow understanding of the complexities and passion for military force as the answer to everything is the bigger risk. He is a recipe for more, wider and far more destructive warfare.
As the conservative curmudgeon George Will explained, invoking Barack Obama’s historic candidacy as a marker:
[I]t illustrates history’s essential promise, which is not serenity – that progress is inevitable – but possibility, which is enough: Things have not always been as they are.
In other words, we can change. We were not always an empire, and we need not always be an empire. We were not always at war, and we do not need to remain at war. Barack Obama will not change anything overnight (we will not all be given bicycles) – because that is not the type of leader he is. He is not a revolutionary urging us to storm the barricades. He is an imperfect leader. He is a sensible pragmatist who believes we are in a unique moment in history in which we have an opportunity to establish meaningful changes by reforming our political, economic, and governmental processes.
The alternative is stark. While I have long been an admirer of John McCain – because he stood up to the President on torture, tax cuts, swiftboating, and global warming – he lost my vote some time ago. He has fought this campaign without honor – ever since his campaign went bankrupt and he began to repudiate every stand he took that hurt him with the Republican base (including on torture, tax cuts, and now apparently, swiftboating.)
In the end, as dire as our economic strength is, this election will be remembered as the the moment when America decided if it was going to remain an empire, or if instead we would return to the best of our traditions, and take our place as a leader in the world community.
In these dangerous times, one candidate poses too great of a risk, and the American people cannot afford to allow a party which has undermined our national security at every turn to remain in power.
Related articles
I think this President has shown a remarkable disrespect for his office, for the moral dimensions of leadership, for his friends, for his wife, for his precious daughter. It is breathtaking to me the level to which that disrespect has risen.
From the statement of John Edwards in the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton on February 12, 1999.
H/t Andrew Sullivan.
The old rule of politics is that a politician’s career isn’t done unless a politician is caught with:
a live boy or a dead girl.
Edwards releases this information on the Friday the Olympics begins and as a war breaks out between Russia and Georgia. He obviously is still looking out for a future political career.
Succinctly put by Steven Greenberg of the Ventura County Star.
I would have to say it’s an open question as to whether or not these Republicans are adherents to the “Starve the Beast” strategy or are just pure hypocrites on the matter of fiscal responsibility.
The McCain campaign is now clumsily attempting to jumpstart/simulate a grassroots web presence according to the Washington Post:
On McCain’s Web site, visitors are invited to “Spread the Word” about the presumptive Republican nominee by sending campaign-supplied comments to blogs and Web sites under the visitor’s screen name. The site offers sample comments (“John McCain has a comprehensive economic plan . . .”) and a list of dozens of suggested destinations, conveniently broken down into “conservative,” “liberal,” “moderate” and “other” categories. Just cut and paste.
Activists and political operatives have used volunteers or paid staff to seed radio call-in shows or letters-to-the-editor pages for years, typically without disclosing the caller or letter writer’s connection to a candidate or cause. Like the fake grass for which the practice is named, such AstroTurf messages look as though they come from the grass roots but are ersatz.
McCain’s campaign has taken the same idea and given it an Internet-era twist. It also has taken the concept one step further.
People who sign up for McCain’s program receive reward points each time they place a favorable comment on one of the listed Web sites (subject to verification by McCain’s webmasters). The points can be traded for prizes, such as books autographed by McCain, preferred seating at campaign events, even a ride with the candidate on his bus, known as the Straight Talk Express, according to campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.
This could just be me – but I cannot recall if I have ever seen, posted in the comments here or on other websites, canned or barely rehashed Obama talking points. I’ve had Hillary talking points posted – and Ron Paul talking points – and I’ve seen anti-Obama talking points. And I’ve seen all of these in many other places as well.
It always seems to me to be a sign of a candidate’s weakness when irrelevant talking points start appearing. If a campaign has a true grass-roots presence, their message will be amplified and – more important – owned by many people. These people will respond authentically and incorporate the talking points without repeating them verbatim.
[digg-reddit-me]A short film meditation on the power of using the right words to inspire action and compassion.
H/t to my friend George for the video.
Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get.
The text message I get with a quote a day lists the source as anonymous; ThinkExist sources it to H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
