ONE IN A MILLION - Gramps Morgan [EXCLUSIVE]
Thanks for inviting me to this discussion. The elimination of Net Neutrality in the summer of 2005 started a major debate over the future of the Internet. Since then, more than a million citizens have come to the defense of the free and open Internet. Millions more may be learning about Net Neutrality for the first time tonight. Hopefully it's the start of a much broader conversation on these crucial issues.
ONE IN A MILLION - Gramps Morgan
The phone and cable companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Washington lobbyists, campaign contributions and PR firms in that Congress will give them the green light to trash the longstanding Net Neutrality principles that have made the Internet what it is today.
This technological revolution keeps turning because the Internet is an unrestricted free marketplace of ideas where innovators rise and fall on their merits. How is it possible that a small group of bloggers, many without a single journalism class, have a combined audience larger than the readership of the New York Times? How is it possible that a company like YouTube could reach so many millions of viewers in 18 months that Google buys them for $1.6 billion? These success stories will only happen on an Internet that is neutral.
Yes I think that the internet allows us freedom of speach ,now if we were at a debate and only the guys that were allowed to enter who paid the one million dollar fee to ask questions than about 99% of America would be out in the cold like they are now in big media so the real problems facing americans would not be heard only the messages of the dictators that control what we see and hear. this is monopoly at its finest. P.S every time theres an election and the republicans think its a tight race theres always a terror scare. Ithink this is all bs with the football games coming up this is exactly what i mean.
Public involvement does work. In the six months since the SavetheInternet.com Coalition was launched, millions of Americans have joined the campaign, spoken out for Internet freedom and put Congress and the phone companies on notice.
The whole purpose of the the Bell System divestiture in 1984 wasto encourage competition and break up a monopoly. Today, theBell System is almost completely whole again, with Verizon, AT&Tand Qwest owning the lion's share of the markets, selling voice,data and long-distance services. In my neighborhood I have ZEROchoice of who my telephone carrier is. This merger of Bell Southand AT&T will only consolidate the market further for millionsmore. They own almost all the CO switching for data and voiceand the "last mile" to virtually every home and business.
Wow! The AT&T, Verizon, Cable and Satellite TV broadcasters are paying millions to lobbyists and congress for my protection and to lower prices for me, the consumer. I'm so impressed. Please save net neutrality, the last stand for democracy.
Our acceptance of corporate greed fosters corporate arrogance. I hope this show has awakened and inspired - and caused millions more to understand the critical need for maintaining net neutrality. How do we speak truth to power without control of the medium?
The fight to preserve Net Neutrality has brought together many disparate groups to oppose the power grab by phone and cable companies. More than a thousand consumer and Internet rights groups, public advocacy organizations, trade groups, faith-based and political organizations, librarians, educators and small businesses have come to the defense of Net Neutrality. More than a million Americans have written Congress asking for it. Net users have used new online tools in the blogosphere, and on YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook to defend the Internet against the very real problems posed by these executives
But if these companies are honestly determined not to defy the principles of Net Neutrality, why are they spending tens of millions of dollars to kill all efforts to protect this fundamental consumer protection?
At the time of SBC's purchase of AT&T in 2005, SBC provided local telephone service in 13 states (Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Wisconsin), provided long distance service to 10 million customers and owned 60% of mobile phone provider Cingular Wireless, the largest mobile phone service provider in the United States. BellSouth, in a joint venture with AT&T Inc., owns the remaining 40% of Cingular Wireless. The company was also an Internet Service Provider and the largest DSL provider in the US, with more than 5.1 million DSL subscribers as of late 2005. Now add BelSouth land-line service to the mix.
Ok Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha, I cant stop laughing at this nonsence answer me one thing and I'll stop laughing; If there were a murder trial and the jurors were allowed to be paid millions to benifit them & there families by the defendant I think that would sway there view on the issue at hand.So why are these lobbiest allowed to pay and donate money to parties involved in the decision making prosses . this seems like a conflict of intrest so lets do away with all this sour business and represent the people not the perps.
Please log off and get the message out to your friends, family, neighbors, parishoners, etc... the depoliticized, the disillusioned, the disconnected, the millions of people who have never even hear of "net neutrality"...!
How come we the people elect these officials, they immediately go and start working for big corporations and lobbyists?Dont they know we the people can also throw them out. As many of them will probably never come back to DC in the coming election.A million people is just the start for Net Neutrality, as more and more people are going to join this tidal force to recon with.
The show presented a series of truly idealistic people who think that government can provide better communications services at lower cost than private industry. Where is the evidence that the ability of government to build a network on time and on budget. Since when will government be able to rapidly change with technology and need. Telecom companies are not making profits at a rate any higher than maonstream corporations. People keep speaking of greed. Where is the greed here ? The profit percentages are fair and in line, especially considering the massive capital investment required. I should also note that the telecom companies pay a million employees and retirees. Why is it a good idea for government to hire its own droves of new government funded workers ? Who is going to pay for all of them (and thier retirement)? And if government funds a competing newtwork that artificially undercuts private industry - we all get to fund the retirement benifits of these new government workers - and bail out the telecom workers retirement plans when government artificially drives down profits. I don't think I have ever seen a report more one sided and devoid of logic. The net neutraility fear mongering is also a crock. These issues will never occur. If they do in some distant future generation - thats why we have regulators and lawmakers. I would have liked to see a more logical, balanced discussion of the fiscal facts.
To Timothy Karr:I hope I can explain this clearly...Digital data is broken up into "packets". The packets travel across the world through millions of miles of cable, and thousands of pieces of hardware, which route it to your house.
Phillip - Microsoft, Google, Yahoo,YouTube, Amazon, Ebay etc. ALL pay hundreds of millions of dollars for access to the internet. The broadband providers currently make (and will continue to make) excellent profit providing NON-DISCRIMINATORY bandwidth. Its total BS that we must sacrafice Net Neutrality in order for the communications duopoly to invest in our communications infrastructure! Its great that private companies are making profit off providing NON-DISCRIMINATORY bandwidth but if they decide that its not enough profit for them then yeah I would rather move the entire internet under public domain then sacrifice net neutrality. I think most citizens would rather see our communications infrastructure moved under public domain then sacrafice net neutrality. However, since companies can clearly make large profits off providing NON-DISCRIMINATORY bandwidth its hardly necessary to go to such an extreme.
This whole thing with network and internet rules change.Started back when congress figured out the FCC couldbe a cash cow. For years the licence fees were used tokeep the FCC running only. Then in the early 70's whencell phones were just in their infantcy congress saw theycould make millions by auctioning off radio spectrum toventure capitalists, for the new cell phone industry. Anit all went to hell from that point. The FCC was no longerconcerned with just licencing and enforcement of theregulations. It was supplying cash to congress's petprojects. And almost no body cared because few reallyunderstood the very important job the FCC had intrustedto it. Now alot of congerssmen say we can't go back. Butthey forget we have repealed legislation befor, likeprohabision. But we need to make it so hot for all ourpolitical reps that it's better for them to change it back.Than it is for them to keep lining their pockets. Now thereare a few, both demacrats and republicans that are work-ing to change it back, and they need our help.
If worst comes to worst the public can always form a co-op, start installing their own wi-fi or fibre and form a parallel internet service in NA (if you can get 10 million people interested).With that many people involved you can also lobby effectively.
lobbying = bribery = corruption. we will not have democracy,equality until we find a way to make selloffs in goverment accountable for their crimes. They get millions of dollars in exchange for favors that affect our kids,our wives, our husbands,our moms,our grandparents. Polititians who are cold blooded people go home with their pockets full, no questions ask, wlile the voters they have betrayed are soffering the results of corruption. 041b061a72