Net Neutrality: Lobbyist McCurry Raises Ire 251
BBCWatcher writes "Mike McCurry, former Clinton Administration Press Secretary turned telecommunications industry lobbyist, reacts to his many new critics in the battle over Net Neutrality: "There are millions and millions of good Democrats who get paid by corporations," he said, "and I think every time we bash corporations, we just turn off people who are in the middle of the political spectrum." Among others, top political blogger Markos Moulitsas Zúniga responded swiftly to McCurry's latest assertions: "What a dishonest piece of sh[..] McCurry has become. This is an anti-corporatist jihad, is it? Is that why we are aligned with Microsoft, Google, and eBay? And when did the Christian Coalition and the Gun Owners of America join the 'left'? What a pathetic attempt to marginalize those of us working for net neutrality....McCurry is now a sad, sad, pathetic man.""
And it's hard to trust (Score:3, Informative)
-Have explicitly said they plan to make Google et al pay twice to use "their" pipes
-Have already blocked e.g. Vonage
-Have (unconfirmed, someone check) reserved 80% of the bandwidth in their fiber for their own TV service
-Have constantly said "There's no problem; the free market will work it out". Which to me translates as "We just want to make sure we have the power to degrade everyone's net service in order to benefit ourselves; we're not actually going to do if of course..."
LAtimes.com requires registration (Score:3, Informative)
WASHINGTON -- Former White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry is no stranger to well-aimed political attacks. After all, he held down the briefing room podium for Bill Clinton during the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, a task he compared to being a "human pinata."
He was called "a stonewalling administration mouthpiece" who "perfected a plethora of dodges" and "was a master at speaking with charm, wit, self-deprecation and ease -- yet saying nothing."
ADVERTISEMENT
But even McCurry admitted surprise at the verbal shellacking he's received on the Internet lately. More shocking to McCurry is the end of the political spectrum doing most of the name calling: his traditionally supportive left.
It's all because of his latest job working for AT&T Inc., BellSouth Corp. and some other communications companies to shape public opinion on perhaps the most controversial aspect of telecom legislation moving through Congress.
"I've faced far worse in the past," McCurry said of the criticism. "Although the bad names I got called were from the other side."
McCurry is co-chairman of Hands Off the Internet, a group arguing against so-called Net neutrality rules -- federal regulations preventing phone and cable companies from charging extra to zip some high-bandwidth services through their wires faster than others.
The group is squarely in the middle of a brewing battle over the issue against big Internet companies, such as Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. With many congressional Democrats and liberal bloggers supporting Net neutrality, McCurry finds himself opposing his historical allies.
In a highly charged election year, McCurry has been branded a turncoat, a Democratic Jedi lost to the dark side at a time of looming crisis across the Internet.
The intense and personal flogging -- partly provoked by McCurry's sharp responses -- shows how contentious Net neutrality has become for some Internet users.
He's been called a "sellout" and "stooge," a purveyor of "dishonest hackery" and "classic flack misdirection," and an "industry sock puppet."
"I think people are reacting not just to the issue but to their disdain for a top-tier Democrat shilling in such an overt way for big-money interests," said David Sirota, a liberal political blogger and author of "Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government -- and How We Take It Back."
McCurry said the response to his new job demonstrated the "constant jihad" of 21st century politics and the ongoing struggle between the liberal and centrist wings of the Democratic Party.
"There are millions and millions of good Democrats who get paid by corporations," he said, "and I think every time we bash corporations, we just turn off people who are in the middle of the political spectrum."
McCurry is one of those Democrats.
After leaving the White House in 1998, McCurry became a partner at Public Strategies Group in Washington, developing communications strategies for corporate and nonprofit clients.
He signed on earlier this year with a coalition of telecommunications companies battling an effort by large Internet companies to get Congress to pass rules that would outlaw any preferential treatment of data over the Internet.
Some phone company executives want to charge extra to guarantee fast and reliable delivery of video and other data-heavy applications.
As word spread of McCurry's role, bloggers started ripping him.
Last month, McCurry ripped back.
"On Net neutrality, I feel like screaming 'puh-leeeze,' " he wrote on the Huffington Post, where he sometimes blogs. "The Internet is not a free public good. It is a bunch of wires and switches and connections and pipes and it is creaky."
He slammed his critics for "worshipping" Vint Cerf, a co-founder of the Internet and now a Google executive who has testified to Congress about the need for Net neutrality rules. McCurry said Cerf had "a clear
Past Hundred Years (Score:3, Informative)
Clintons surplus was non existent (see counting social security taxes as income and not counting the debt). The last real surplus was under Eisenhower and had a Republican congress.
National unemployment rate at 4.7 percent or full employment, gotta enjoy that decline.
Sir despite the above I will concede you the debate for I am crippled in that I argue from facts.
Re:DailyKos is pathetic (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, it was
Mercenaries. Must be nice to be able to redefine the language for one's convenience.
two ends of the pipe (Score:5, Informative)
Re:DailyKos is pathetic (Score:1, Informative)
Re:LOL on Exogenous Factors (Score:2, Informative)
Oil prices have risen because the 6 oil companies that control our government have cut down production. No new oil refineries have been built in the US since 1976. We are at an 8 year high in supply for oil, we just don't refine it!
If you look at these oil companies investor reports, you will see it is price gouging. Take Exxon/Mobil. Last year as a share of capital investment, Exxon Mobil made a 46% rate of return on it's US oil operations, a 59% profit margin on it's US oil refining, totalling $36 billion. They love reporting this information to their investors. While a barrel of oil costs $20 to make, they turn around and sell it for $70.
It's a myth that Saudis or some organization sets these prices. The prices are set on energy trading markets. Back in 2000, Enron lobbied hard for the "Commodities Futures Modernization Act." Look it up. It deregulated the energy trading exhanges, meaning over half of the trades are unregulated. When the oil companies are the main ones throwing money around on these exchanges, it's easy for them to hike up the price.
As for the Democrats, yes they do receive money. But if you look at the percentage of campaign contributions going to Republicans, Republicans receive 4 times as much money from oil companies than democrats. That means Republicans should be hung 4 times as high for making consumers deal with this BS.
See Tyson Slocon's testimony before the Senate:http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear
Oil Refiners:
http://wyden.senate.gov/leg_issues/reports/wyden_
http://69.63.136.213/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/e
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/printer_100605I
Campaign Contributions:
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?I
What it means to be a Democrat (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, speaking as a Demcorat, I can agree that it's a bad thing to "bash" corporations, provided that by "bash" you mean "persecute in an arbitrary and unreasonable manner."
However,it's profoundly against what it means to be a Democrat to call it "bashing" just because you aren't doing what an individual corporation or cartel would like. What it means to be a Demcorat is to belive that the government is the custodian of the public good, as measured by the effect on the welfare and freedom on a typical person. Sometimes this means standing in the way of private companies, sometimes this means stepping aside, and sometimes this means encouraging them. In the end the significance of the corporation's welfare is, in itself, zero. If a policy is good for the public and good for a corporation, that's nice. But if a policy is good for the public and bad for an individual corporation, or even corporations as a whole, it's still a good policy.
That's what distinguishes us from the Republicans, who think this is very nearly a logical contradiction. You don't have to be anti-corporate to be a Democrat. You can still be a Demcorat an think that 99.9% of the time favoring corporations as a whole favors the public. You just can't think that favoring corporations and favoring people is the same thing.
You can be a Democrat and make an argument against net neutrality -- it's an uphill battle, but it can be done. You just have to show a quid pro quo in which the public gives up the right to unfettered competition in Internet content, but gains something more valuable in return. It's hard to imagine what this would be though. With cable and the end of rules limiting ownership of broadcast outlets and newspapers, we're seeing the end of the traditional media as a marketplace of ideas, even if economic competition continues unabated. What will happen when corporations can favor their own Internet media as well?
"The Internet is not a free public good. It is a bunch of wires and switches and connections and pipes and it is creaky."
This is also completely wrong.
The Internet is not a bunch of wires and switches. It's a shared consensus on how to interconnect networks and computers. Granted consumers connect to the Internet over and individual vendor's equipment; in fact when you plug your computer into the network your computer becomes, technically speaking, part of the Internet. This doesn't mean you own part of the Internet. It means your equipment is participating in it.
It follows that no cartel of vendors should be allowed to sieze control of the Internet by aquiring control strategic pieces of it. That was what the medieval barons, who were really no than brigands, used to do. They'd build a castle on a river or at a mountain pass and bled the commerce that went through it.
Re:LOL on Exogenous Factors (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, it is. (though you wouldn't know it from all the oil execs lying and blaming ethonol producers, the US Congress and OPEC a few months ago).
Considering that the Democrats have prevented new gasoline refineries from being built in the last 10 or 15 years and that the oil companies profits on one gallon of gas are around 9 cents, I find your arguments (and all those links you provide), completely unconvincing.
Nobody is preventing new refineries from being built other than the oil companies. Hi, put down your GOP playbook and come on down to visit us here on the gulf coast where we do the vast majority of refining and local governments have been trying to get refineries built for decades. We've got entire cities whose citizens do nothing but running oil refineries and they'd all love to have new ones built. I can take you on a tour of Pasadena and Beaumont if you like, and introduce you to a few thousand of my close personal friends in industry and government who'd love the tax base and the overtime.
The only reason we don't have refineries being built is because there is no incentive to do so -- oil companies can sell 1,000,000 barrels for $70,000,000, or they can invest billions in refineries and sell 1,000,000 barrels for $50,000,000. It's a no-brainer, it's far more profitable to operate fewer refineries and charge more for the product. And since all the companies have merged, there's no possibility of somebody upsetting the apple cart, they just silently agree to do nothing and everybody gets richer. It's not like you and I are going to get some buddies together and build a $2 billion refinery to compete with them (ExxonMobil made almost $10 billion PROFIT at the end of 2005! That's 5 refineries right there -- ask anyone in Houston how fast the companies are throwing that money at every conceivable project they can find for tax breaks, but none of those projects are refineries!)
It's no different than in California when the out of state suppliers were artifically jacking up prices by just shutting down electric generators during peak periods for "maintenance". Why go to all the hard work of maximizing production when you can make more money by minimizing it? So what if the country as a whole gets f*cked in the process? The beauty is that they can make more money for less work, and people like you who've never worked in oil and gas actually believe them when they blame it on the big, bad government!