What’s At Stake
Jun 21st, 2006 at 2:41 pm by Susie
Joan Blades, one of the Moveon.org founders, explains why net neutrality is so important. This is happening Friday, so call your senators:
You know, it’s incredibly close. [Net Neutrality] is not on many people’s radars. This issue is so much deeper than most people are going to go. It’s one of those things where it was completely invisible until about a month ago. And so it’s amazing to have a coalition of 700 [organizations] come together, across the gun owners of America [Laughs], along with all the organizations MoveOn has traditionally associated with. It’s a pretty amazing coalition.
But then you have the other side creating ads that are very misleading. Saying that we’re trying to put restrictions on the internet or close off [Laughs] traditional American values and free enterprise. That it’s really the monopoly versus the open free space. And so all of a sudden it becomes very confusing to people when they start seeing these other ads.
It’s natural for organization like AT&T to say, “Hey, this is wonderful. This is a huge new area for potential profits.†But, we know that huge, new areas of potential profits for a couple of companies can lead to all parts of opportunities closing down in the marketplace. They have control over a crucial part of the infrastructure.
We thought we had it taken care of. But the fact is it passed in the House, although we did have some bipartisan opposition. It’s very, very, very close.
Call the following list of undecided Senators via the main switchboard toll free at: 1-888-355-3588. Only 13 so far are on the side of Network Neutrality. Call today or you will lose your internet on Friday. You can say the following suggested by savetheinternet:
Network Neutrality is the First Amendment of the Internet. Congress must protect this set of principles, which keeps the Internet free and open to all. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Byron Dorgan have introduced a bipartisan bill (S. 2917), which protects Internet freedom. Please support their efforts for meaningful, enforceable Network Neutrality protections.
Maybe you’re unaware, but your top blog ad, “What is the future of the internet,” leads to sites that are anti-net neutrality. Just thought you would want to know.
Yes, I knew that. I already warned my readers not to pay any attention to what the ad says.
Ha! Ok, cool.
Or as Arthur Miller once wrote, “attention must not be paid…”
Why be afraid of a free and open debate on the merits of net neutrality? If your cause is just, your arguments are true, and your evidence is solid, why fear letting Internet democracy work and offer links to the other side’s information? Your followers are smart aren’t they? Can’t they judge for themselves what to listen to?
Our side isn’t afraid of a free and open debate on the merits of NN. My site, net competition.org has a section of many Pro-net neutrality documents. It even has the links to pro net nuetrality websites: savetheinternet.org, itsournet.org, moveon.org, lessigblog.com, DailyKos.com and the Christian Coalition.
Are you confident enough in your position to link people to our site and my blog and to others like handsofftheinternet.com? Isn’t that true Internet democracy in action?
I wonder, did you ever pay any attention to it? Have you weighed any of the competing arguments, or just gone along with what Atrios and Matt Stoller and their like have argued?
Oh yeah, you must be a regular. Everyone knows I agree with Duncan and Matt on everything! In fact, I don’t even have my own brain. I just borrow theirs, and they borrow theirs from Kos. So really, blame him.
But thanks for the tip. I had no idea Matt was covering this so intensely. What a wealth of information!
http://mydd.com/