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.""
Two things... (Score:5, Interesting)
#2. Generally speaking, wider "left" political blogsophere supports net neutrality very strongly. And the reason for that, is actually a traditionally centrist viewpoint, namely in order to maximize the effect and forces of a free and open market. Eliminating net neutrality is a great threat to putting a full stop to innovation in business and technology on the internet. It stops new players and technologies from taking those first baby steps out.
You have one area of business with high barriers to entry and a few companies, and you have another area of business with much lower barriers to entry and new companies forming every day?
Which is the important one to protect here?
Re:DailyKos is pathetic (Score:1, Interesting)
Am I the only one who thinks this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't hold back on the character assassination there Markos. However, if you read through his blog post it seems to be pretty well deserved. McCurry does seem to have run out of arguments on the issue in question and is now resorting to "Well, these people must just be anti-corporation lefties", somewhat ignorant of the fact that many corporations are seriously against all this. It would be hugely detrimental to Google
"The internet has always had rules. One of those rules is that even if you own a pipe, you're not allowed to tell people what they can put through that pipe. You can't block web sites, you can't say 'don't stream video', and you can't dictate what people and can't say. You do have to pay for the pipe you use; Google pays millions a month on one end, and millions of consumers pay smaller amounts ($20-$60) a month on the other. But no one can tell you what you can do with those pipes. It's very much the opposite of cable TV. There are no gatekeepers, and that's by design. This has created a highly competitive marketplace."
This is the way the internet works, and even if the Telcos get what they want the internet will definitely not work like this. There is simply no other way. It will simply collapse and people will bypass the telcos and go their own way, or the internet in the US certainly would be non-existant for most ordinary citizens while other countries surge ahead. Anyway, one can see why the telcos are reacting badly because in the long-run they are simply on a hiding to nothing, but it really doesn't matter one bit how much they spend. The only certainty in life and in business is change.
Re:Who's pathetic? (Score:3, Interesting)
Very common. In fact, I would wager you use it as well (as does almost every other human being). Allow me to demonstrate:
s/Liberal/Nazi (I am in no way trying to equate the two; this is merely an academic exercise to indicate that if we change the source in question, you would react quite differently.):
"Dietrich proudly wears the label of Nazi And so he can't ever be correct, and anyone who listens to him is obviously a partisian Nazi as well. No need to consider what he said. Don't think about it, just reflexively discount it. If he knew anything about anything, he would be a non-Nazi."
So you see, dear reader, you are (probably) guilty of the very same thing.
bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
The Republican pattern of fiscal irresponsibility and anti-growth policies is also illustrated at the state level: there is a huge net flow of funds from Democratic states to Republican states.
Republicans like to talk a lot about growth and fiscal responsibility, but in reality, what Republicans primarily deliver is handouts to the rich, bloated government, and restrictions on personal freedoms.
It would be nice to have true conservative government: government that is frugal, government that respects traditional liberties, and government that limits its own size and scope; unfortunately, Republicans are the antithesis of that. The problem with Republican rhetoric isn't even that their criticism of Democrats is wrong, it's that they themselves are even worse.
Its Getting Worse...What to Do? (Score:1, Interesting)
This [slashdot.org] is [slashdot.org] a problem [slashdot.org].
I dont remember the fight going on so many fronts at once a few years ago. It didnt seem like they were pressing in some new avenue every month. These _are_ serious issues, too. Losing one of these does restrict my freedoms and dramaticall impact the way I live my life.
What is the right response to this? I contribute to the EFF. I call my representatives, as if that mattered. What more can be done to make my position not only heard, but considered, and ultimately put other persons in agreement with it. What are other slashdotters doing to accomplish this?
Re:Considering all sides of the issue... (Score:2, Interesting)
And then some roads... would be just impossible to get on. What's that? You say you want to drive to Disneyland? Congratulations because now the roads to access the Disneyland parking lots all charge a sur-charge of 20.00.
What's this? You want to drive to the beach? Well because its the weekend and the first hot sunny day in 3 weeks, you're going to be charged an extra 10.00 "good weather weekend" surcharge if you want to drive closer than a 10 block walk to the beach. But surely this is fair? I mean these are private roads, don't they have the right to restrict access to the better roads or the roads that get you closer to where you actually want to go?
Blind capitalism is not the American way.
As far as Bridget's arguments however... its totally rediculous. Content providers and content users all PAY for their bandwidth. If i want more bandwidth i have to pay for it. If my website goes over so much traffic, I pay for it. If I want a T1 installed to my house, I have to pay ALOT for it. Do you think E-Bay is paying the same amount in bandwidth cost that Craigslist is paying? No freaking way.
This isnt about paying for bandwidth, this is about fragmenting the internet, blocking competition, blocking voices, blocking access. For the home user, they want to charge you extra for being able to access Ebay just as if it were a premium channel on HBO. For companies like Ebay and Google, they understand that they'll be extorted to pay a premium to not have their service to certain areas degraded! It's the flipside of the cable analogy whereby instead of hte customers paying for access to some services on the web somewhere, now services on the web also have to pay a "fee" to be carried on these networks!
Re:And it's hard to trust (Score:3, Interesting)
But some of them are stupid bribes. When the official doesn't produce results for the corporate briber, the official has not done anything wrong, except maybe allow the appearance of doing something wrong, which costs the system in ease of telling the difference.
When the official continues (or starts) to work against that corporate interest or agenda, though receiving a failed bribe, that official has gotten funded by the corporation to work against that corporation. When the result serves the people, and not just some corporate competitor, that official has my respect for doing it right.
When officials get bribed by corporations, but work against them, including outlawing corporate bribery, they're heroes.
FWIW, we are a nation founded explicitly on distrust of the government. Anyone whose politics is based on trust is a sucker and a liability. The best officials to elect are those most easily caught and damaged when they do something wrong. That's accountability, which has been reduced (in the words of George Bush Jr) to an "accountability moment" one day every two or four years. Between which politicians rely on "trust" to avoid getting caught.
Common Misconception (Score:2, Interesting)
Every backbone provider is being paid for use of their networks. I fault the "cloud" concept of the Internet for the public's ignorance, because people just assume their data magically gets to the other side through sheer benevolence on the part of the unseen network providers. When people say that Level 3 doesn't pay AT&T for carrying traffic, and then they use that premise to promote quality of service fees, what is not largely understood (or purposely left out) is that AT&T doesn't pay Level 3 for carrying traffic either! If AT&T starts degrading Level 3's traffic unless a fee is paid, AT&T will see either Level 3 asking AT&T for money for its traffic, or Level 3 will drop its peering and start routing traffic around AT&T (as will every other backbone network), thus leaving AT&T to pay *more* for connectivity or live in a black hole.
Please read up on Internet Peering [wikipedia.org], the practice of two large networks exchanging traffic for mutual benefit.
Re:Democrats and Corporations (Score:3, Interesting)
Well I think its safe to say that oil prices are more than a little vulnerable to manipulation. Now its nearly impossible to tell who is doing all the manipulating, but I would guess big oil companies and OPEC governments certainly have a part. OPEC is after all a cartel which is designed to collude to set production and manipulate prices though they are often not very good at it any more.
Whomever the mysterious oil "traders" are who drive the prices on commodity markets are probably most to blame. These are probably middlemen who are buying and selling oil futures and delight in pocketing a quick $1-10 dollars a barrel, for doing nothing, other than gambling with large sums of money. Everytime there is some bad news in an oil producting country, often news that had no real impact on oil supplies, they exploit it to push prices up and profit. It just happens that OPEC and Exxon Mobile make out like bandits when a barrel of oil goes for $70 too. It doesn't cost anything close to that to actually produce so more than half of that is pure profit. There is unfortunately very little real competition in the "free market" for oil thanks to OPEC, oil company consolidation and commodity markets. Thanks to consolidation Exxon Mobile now closely resembles Standard Oil. A key factor Exxon Mobile does play in gas prices is they do control refining and since refining was deregulated under Reagan the oil companies have colluded to keep refining capacity on a razors edge. Excess refining capacity eats in to their profits. Insufficient refining capacity is a convenient tool to keep supplies short which makes it easy for them to drive up prices. Commodity markets are probably the most malignant part of the system but they are not one you can easily fix.
"Plenty of democrats are paid by corporations."
If you want to fix the blame for the problem in our political system everyone should stop trying to fix it on Democrats or Republicans. The current cancer can mostly be traced to lobbyists who are corrupting both parties and the whole system, and the politicians they buy from both parties. Most of the lobbyists do in fact work for corporations though some for work for Unions and other special interest groups too.
The single biggest source of corruption is the revolving door in government and the military, and Mike McCurray, lobbyist is a product of that system. You see people who work for the government and military don't get paid well so they don't take political appointments or spend years kissing ass for the pay. They do however take these jobs so they can spend their careers doing favors for lobbyists, again mostly corporate lobbyists but not always, and then when they retire they get gigantic payoffs where they land multimillion dollar executive positions and "consulting" jobs for those same special interests, or they become lobbyists themselves and charge their clients huge sums for their political connections and "access".
You see that is the problem with Mike McCurray here, and Arie Fleischer and just about every other political appointee and politician turned lobbyist. McCurray doesn't actually care what the best public policy is on these issues. They are paid large sums to take the position of their benefactors, usually corprate, and then use their skills, personal influence and knowledge of the system to corrupt it to get the outcome they seek, an outcome which usually runs counter to the public interest as it does in this case.
Medicare D, the prescription drug benefit, was the most expensive and vivid example of this corruption yet witnessed in America. The Medicare administrator was negotiating a high paying job with people who reaped a windfall from this bill, at the same time he was outright lying about the total cost of the bill to make sure it would pass to please his future employers, so it will cost taxpayer hundreds of billions more than was claimed when it was passed. The Congressman
Re:LOL on Exogenous Factors (Score:3, Interesting)
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. Don't even get me started on the amount that ever single gallon of gas is taxed.
We'd be better off building more refineries and eliminating some of the massive taxes on gasoline, and spending less time citing hand picked statistics.
Employment (Score:3, Interesting)
Okay, to come back to topic: We're really out on a limb here. Either we Americans will innovate our way out of the debt hole we've collectively dug under Bush's leadership, or we're going to see another Great Depression, as the dollar falls violently against other currencies (the Asians are already tiring of propping it up by buying our debt), and personal bankruptcies multiply as mortgages become unpayable. Most people who lose jobs now only find new jobs that pay much less. The only thing that can save us (aside from not electing any more Bushes) is radical economic innovation, of the sort we saw in the 90s before the Enron-style hucksters got ahold of it and milked the boom. And the only way to promote that innovation is to keep the Net neutral, and control of the economy away from the dinosaur-like old-line megacorps (particularly in communications and energy and banking) which have done so much to push us towards the precipice we risk falling over.