Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/07/12/call-now.html
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Hard at it since 5:30 AM Pacific Time. It’s a good day to be alive in the USA!
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“melt every phone in DC!”
Hot AF in DC today, they melt on their own.
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The dream of saving net neutrality is pleasant, but only a dream. The government is in the grip of wealthy plutocrats who dream of having ALL the money in the country in their fists, and they have the authority. No matter how many emails, phone calls, tweets, texts, smoke signals, or red flares you send, they have made up their minds to wreck net neutrality so they can get richer by selling access like cabages, and they do not give a tinker’s damn what the common people (those who aren’t rich enough to offer them bribes) want. They will never even know how many messages are sent because they will refuse to pay attention to anything but their own desires, and you have no power to compel them to pay attention.
All your messages about “I want this” or “I don’t want that” are utterly meaningless. If your messages threaten to make the feel the consequences of their actions - if you talk or write about how ruining net neutrality will cost them money or reelection - and if you could somehow make them believe such threats were valid - then the might pay some attention to what you want. But not under this Administration. If they hear how many messages they have received about this, they are going to do nothing but act like those fatcat stock brokers did on camera during the “Occupy Wall Street” kerfuffle - they’re going to laugh like hell in delight at knowing how many poor people they’re spitting on.
Have fun with your campaign. Get what enjoyment from it you can. But don’t expect to get results.
The issue will return in the future and hopefully under the watch of a Democrat controlled congress. Protesting today is a reminder that public opposition is not going away and will be a voting issue for future elections.
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A common response that ISPs make when challenged with calls for net neutrality is that the government shouldn’t regulate the internet.
I’ve been thinking about this and they are right. I don’t want the government regulating the internet. What I want is regulation on ISPs and that is indeed a different thing.
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THEY DON’T CARE if the public opposes. The public doesn’t have the resources to threaten them or their position in any way, so they will do whatever they please. And no, it will NOT be a voting issue in the future for anyone but an extremely tiny minority. By the time the next election rolls around some will have forgotten, some will no longer care, and none will be willing to expend the time, effort, and treasure it would take to make this a serious issue. Compared to drugs, abortion, crime, jobs - the Republican and right-wing constant drumbeats - this issue will never be more than a sideshow.
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I would be interested to hear you explain why previous legislative efforts to roll back net neutrality have failed, despite the will of those wealthy plutocrats you mentioned. I understood it to be largely because of public outcry of this exact sort, so it seems odd to hear you write it off as useless. If not that, then what killed SOPA in your opinion?
Yes, as long as the internet exists there will be efforts such as this to capture it. The internet is powerful, so it will always be coveted by the greedy. But even if you want to believe that the death of the free internet is inevitable, there is every reason to fight to delay that demise for as long as possible.
Trump is exactly the kind of guy who will one-eighty on this if he is made aware and thinks it will make people like him. Money is secondary to ego, though of course the one feeds the other.
So it’s at least worth picking up a phone over.
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Under the previous administration you at least had an FCC who was receptive to public comment.
Now, we have an FCC led by a former Verizon employee that has already struck down numerous pro-consumer regulations and has shown himself to be very pro-telecom. FCC officials have stated that they won’t be swayed by public comment for striking down Title II regulations. Then you have a pro-business Republican majority Congress that I have no doubt would approve these rule changes.
If this happens the only remaining recourse is for the public to sue the FCC for acting capriciously.
Like @Menotyou, I am not feeling very confident in a victory right now. I’ll certainly be happy to proven wrong here, though.
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