You Will Anyway: As If

Monday, November 10, 2014

As If

Early this morning, President Obama issued a clear and powerful statement of support for real Net Neutrality — one that left no wiggle room or confusion about where he stands.

Email from FreePress.net

Does that matter?

He urged the FCC to reclassify broadband under Title II — exactly what you've been calling and fighting for.

And he’s been so successful in getting done what the voters who elected him expected so far. Why not this?

Please call and thank President Obama right now.

How about if I just say I’m going to? That would be appropriate, wouldn’t it?

The president's statement is a direct result of the unrelenting pressure YOU have put on Washington.

And the FCC is more afraid of MY pressure and Obama’s “clear and powerful statement” than they are of the internet, telephone and broadcasting giants? Methinks not.

The fight isn't over yet: Until the FCC passes real Net Neutrality protections, we can't let up.

We’d better dig in.

On the same morning net neutrality demonstrators showed up at FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's house to protest a plan that could let broadband providers charge for "fast lanes" to the Internet, the demonstrators found unexpected support from the White House.

President Obama released a statement and video Monday in which he makes the same demand as the demonstrators: Reclassify the Internet — and mobile broadband — as a public utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.

"I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online," Obama said in the statement.

[...]

The question is, of course, whether the president's stand will make any difference to rule-makers, who act independently of the White House.

NPR

Call me jaded, but I don’t think there’s any question.

Shares of leading cable and Internet service providers dropped on Monday after President Barack Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to adopt rules to save and support net neutrality.

Market Watch

He's not completely dead in the water then, is he, if his proclamations still affect the market? Won't last.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.