Thursday, December 7, 2017

End of Net Neutrality


In October, I posted about the crisis of the digital commons and the future of democracy HERE: http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-crisis-of-digital-commons-and.html

Net neutrality is a key component of the digital commons and it is under direct threat: see https://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-what-you-need-know-now

ACTION IS NEEDED NOW!

PLEASE call 1-202-418-1000 to reach the voicemail of the Chairman of the FCC. Say your name, city, and state and that you oppose the repeal of Net Neutrality.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION https://www.dailywireless.org/internet/net-neutrality-history-present-impacts-and-future/

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11 comments:

  1. Hard to believe how fast america is falling, as a free country. Trump is moving fast now. Probably will bring in contractors and right-wing militias for FEMA camps and right-wing death squads soon. Like america has in so many other countries. What made America think that, when they got into full swing, they, would not do it
    Here?

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  2. From Reddit
    Alex Jones
    Is Alex Jones evil, insane or simply bought and paid for?
    I think this is something that's worth addressing. Here's a guy, who attracts millions of the world's angriest most disenfranchised people, then goes on to feed them complete hogwash. If you have a show dedicated to addressing nefarious conspiracies by people plotting against our best interest, surely you would be interested in the fact that oil companies researched the climate change caused by fossil fuels, only to use their advance knowledge to wage a war of disinformation against anyone who tries to ring the alarm bells? This is the most pure and unadulterated form of evil imaginable, of people willing to destroy the whole planet just to protect their own individual greed. But he won't touch it.
    Now, it's one thing to be wrong. You'd imagine that watching the Australian Great Barrier Reef die, massive droughts threatening famines throughout Africa and a stunning global temperature explosion to knew heights, would make a man consider that he might have been wrong and change his opinion, or at least shut up about it. But that's not what happens.
    Here's Alex Jones from a few days ago, hosting a show with Lord Monckton, "The Day The Climate Change Myth Died".Instead of acknowledging the open conspiracy of entrenched corporate greed by people who have no higher calling in life than to enrich themselves and buy private yets and yachts, the narrative is rearranged, to portray a hypothetical conspiracy where global warming is used as a myth to implement some sort of global tyranny, for no clear reason other than some people's apparent desire to have global tyranny for its own sake.
    Go back a few years, and we find Alex Jones and his cronies peddling the idea that peak oil is a myth. Why is peak oil a myth? Because supposedly there are mysterious deep geological reserves from which oil flows upwards, allowing you to permanently retrieve more oil from the same wells. This bullshit was peddled exactly at a time when oil prices were going through the roof.
    Of course these are the same people who claim that 90+% of the world's population is going to be eradicated with weaponized ebola. Their evidence is mostly based on a herpetologist in Texas who's worried that overpopulation threatens an ecological catastrophe. But apparently, this secret plot to eradicate most of the world's population no longer deserves precedence over funny videos of angry feminist college students.
    So what's going on here? To reiterate, we have a guy here, who spews disinformation on three problems that are going to define our lives in the 21st century: Overpopulation, fossil fuel depletion and climate change. Note that he doesn't express "skepticism", he spews an internally consistent anti-narrative, in which every real problem we face is in fact a hoax, created by evil powerful men lurking behind the scenes who wish to gain more control over us.

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  3. How exactly does this happen?
    It's possible that Alex Jones is just stupid and/or mentally ill, leading him to believe in his own hallucinations. It's also possible that Alex Jones is evil and knows what he's doing. He creates a unified conspiratorial narrative that intuitively appeals to people, as it portrays a group of evil powerful men that meet in secret at the Bilderberg group, who ultimately wish to eradicate the majority of the human population, with only himself and his cronies as people actively dedicated to addressing this problem. Because nobody else competes in this economic niche, it ensures that he keeps sufficient fans/cash crops to afford a wealthy lifestyle. It also has the side effect of ensuring that all their anger and energy and up misdirected, cast at faces in the clouds.
    Alternatively, it's attractive to consider the possibility that Alex Jones receives money from the oil industry in one form or another. He creates a counternarrative that they could never overtly associate themselves with, but appeals to a naturally anti-authoritarian demographic for whom the general propaganda (global warming is exaggerated/not caused by humans/there's still enough oil out there) doesn't really work. Any thoughts? What explains this phenomenon?


    Alex Jones also claims he cares about Fukushima. That is while going on rants about stupid Tv critics of trump. Trump is a most Pronuclear, proextraction president. Trump supports Abe in Japan . so does Jones.He supports opening more reactors in Japan and, elsewhere. Supports radioactive- Fukushima food, shipped to the world. Alex Jones a payed-vicious, propagandist and liar.

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  4. What our secret Police , people like Ayn Rand and Donald Trump really think we are good for. Answer: good for nothing. We are disposible in their eyes, in the eyes of the Superior Galt Billionaire elites and oligarchs.
    https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12/08/98078/

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  5. How America is Quickly Becoming a Oligarchic-Totalitarian-Neoliberal State. We will mostly be Expendible Slaves Soon. The Double-Think Fake Ideology of Steve Bannpn jas Achieved its goal. A permenant War Nuclear Security State : Where Trillions are Spent on Nuclear Warheads, Uranium Oil extraction Nuc Reactors. Most water tables in US contaminated w radioactive nuclear shit. soon They all will. All for the ill Gotten short term gains for the oligarchs.

    How the Mont Pelerin Society ‘Neoliberal Thought Collective’ Is Influencing Donald Trump’s Presidency


     https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/11/29/how-mont-pelerin-society-neoliberal-thought-collective-influencing-donald-trump-s-presidency?utm_source=dsb%20newsletterBy Graham Readfearn • Wednesday, November 29, 2017 After Donald Trump won the US election, analysts, researchers and journalists got to work to track how this apparent political outsider would suddenly gather a team.

    Despite promising to “drain the swamp” of vested interests and lobbyists, it became clear Trump was intent on refilling it with figures and ideas from the well-established network of conservative and neoliberal think-tanks.

    Suddenly, staff from groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation were helping to draw up plans for a Trump administration.

    Last month, Trump thanked one of those groups personally, with an address to the Heritage Foundation’s annual meeting.

    But those think tanks, and the people who lead and run them, have strong links to another influential group that has been trying to bend governments around the world to a particular ideology for almost 70 years.

    The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) was established in 1947 by economist and philosopher Friedrich von Hayek — a man considered by many to be the godfather of modern free market thinking.

    Mont Pelerin Society Membership List

    Some scholars have described it as the “neoliberal thought collective” with its ideas heavily influencing the political administrations of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US, and many world leaders since.

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  6. DeSmog has obtained a 2013 Mont Pelerin Society membership list, showing the group continues to boast influential members including former judges, former country leaders, wealthy industrialists, academics and think tank operatives in 62 countries from Argentina to Zimbabwe.

    According to the Mont Pelerin Society, its members “see danger in the expansion of government, not least in state welfare, in the power of trade unions and business monopoly, and in the continuing threat and reality of inflation.”

    Members continue to meet at annual conferences and regional meetings, often held in appealing locations.  The next meeting will be held in Sweden’s capital, Stockholm.

    High profile members include former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, petrochemical billionaire Charles Koch and former Czech Republic president Vaclav Klaus.

    Heritage Foundation’s Influence

    As DeSmog has previously reported, many US, UK and Australia-based groups that have spread climate science denial are heavily represented among Mont Pelerin’s membership list. Many groups funded by Charles Koch and his brother David through their family foundations and Koch Industries Inc, are also well represented on the MPS directory.

    When Donald Trump won the election, one of the first people appointed onto his transition team was the Heritage Foundation’s Ed Feulner.  Feulner joined MPS in 1972 – the year before he joined fellow Republican Paul Weyrich to start the Heritage Foundation.

    Feulner was also president of MPS from 1996 to 1998 and has previously served as MPS treasurer.

    In October, Trump gave a keynote address to the Heritage Foundation’s annual President’s Club Meeting.

    “Heritage has been instrumental in providing the Trump administration with sound policies and experts who now serve in key government positions,” wrote Feulner in an email announcing Trump’s appearance………

    Heritage, a conservative libertarian think tank, was also described by Politico as Trump’s “shadow transition team” as its fellows and staffers took up roles for the president.

    In February, New Republic wrote how the Heritage Foundation was shaping Trump’s administration and was set to play a “key role in steering domestic policy” for the coming years.

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  7. This week, the administrator of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, is scheduled to appear at a climate and energy policy summit hosted by the Heritage Foundation. Among the speakers will be several climate science denialists from the CO2 Coalition, including William Happer……..

    A Neoliberal Network

    MPS is also heavily linked with the Atlas Network — a co-ordinating group of more than 460 think tanks and operatives in 96 countries.

    Atlas president Alejandro Chafuen joined MPS in 2010 and the current chair of Atlas, Linda Whetsone, is the daughter of the network’s founder, Sir Antony Fisher.

    DeSmog’s analysis of Mont Pelerin Society’s membership shows scores of members who are affiliated with the same network of think tanks that have fought against policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

    When Trump is gutting environmental regulations, pulling out of international climate agreements and pledging to cut welfare support and social security, it starts to look a lot like the world MPS members have been pushing for over decades.

    Democracy In Chains

    That larger strategy to undermine democracies the world over is chronicled in an excellent book “Democracy In Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America” by award-winning historian Nancy MacLean of Duke University. The book was a finalist in the prestigious National Book Awards for 2017.

    MacLean found what George Monbiot calls the “missing link” that helps to explain the radicalisation of governments from the US to the UK and beyond. In an abandoned building on the campus of George Mason University, MacLean found the paper trail of the life’s work of James McGill Buchanan, including confidential letters with Charles Koch that confirm millions of Koch’s dollars flowed to GMU in support of Buchanan’s work.

    Buchanan — who was a member and past-president of the Mont Pelerin Society — developed a strategy along with MPSmember Charles Koch and other elite industrialists to construct a network of neoliberal think tanks that, as MacLean writes and documents, have infected democracies with radical right wing policy ideas designed to shield and benefit the wealthy elite, and to disempower the majority of citizens.

    Buchanan served on the advisory board of the Exxon- and Koch-funded Independent Institute, and as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute, which Charles Koch co-founded with Murray Rothbard and Edward Crane. Crane is a long-standing member of MPS, and Rothbard is credited as having suggested to Charles Koch that he study the leadership of Vladimir Lenin and to view government as “our enemy.”

    Sound familiar?

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  8. That's right the Koch Bros. Sheldon Adelson, Robert Mercer  and their ilk don't like democracy. Even bill gates does not. How else could he get 200 mollion for his mininuke scam?
    It is not like they do not want government. They are, after all some of the most powerful ruling oligarchs. They want government  on their terms. Wage theft and slavery do not bother them, or child labor. Why should it bother you? Who says your overlords have to pay you for working for them? Who says nuclear reactors need oversight? Their operators are not going to let them leak, so much. If one does meltdown, why do anything? Why have any Environment Protection Agency? The anxiety of radiation exposure and, radioisotope absorption far outweighs any other danger of radiation exposure. All nuclear power, medical isotope manufacture , and chemical manufacture should be self regulated ?
    We should build as many nuclear weapons and reactors, as possible  as quickly as possible. The shorterm profits and speculation on such things is so looks so profitable. Especially if they are unregulated. The complex extraction, refining, and logistics networks of support networks associated with them, make them look so good on paper. They can take the major profit losses, out of the hides of consumers and workers and the children of future generations from radioactive waste exposure and rad waste. No biggie!

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  9. The corporations and oligarchs make sure there are only, rightwing warmonging  parties in america now The corporate democrats actually are pretty oligarchic, they even help fascist republicans screw us. They ruined syria and libya and many other countries.

    Three wars w obama in power. They were more against climate change, but still favored military bullshit and they are a neoliberal party like the racist nazi republicans. They closed no nuclear reactors and obama wanted 1trillion to proliferate nuclear weapons.

    The libertard liberarians who are ayn rand, closet fascists , and nazis run the show, now. Totally pro oligarch . kill everyone else is their motto. Ayn rand loved her serial killers and admired psychopaths.

    She was a closet nazi. So now we are in a ruthless fascist totalitarian-state . a completely unsustainable  oil and uranium, coal based extraction, wartime economy. 1 trillion dollars to build thousands of more nuclear weapons, while most countriea in the world signed a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. The massive building of these evil things and nuks, will supercontaminate what is left of the USA. It will continue the ghastly contamination of america , WITH NUCLEAR waste. There are likely to to be, major nuclear accidents here, in the next year, from old reactors that are leaking and climate change damage to them. 

    The fuking blood sucking maggot oligarchs, trumps republicans, just see quick short term profits. Too bad for humanity.

    Everyone but the super rich are disposable.

    There are more than 100,000 people in various stages of homelessness in the houston area since the three consecutive hurricanes flooded and destroyed half a million homes ,apts ,trailers in se Texas, in a 20,000 sq mile area..  And yes it is from global warming.

    If a war breaks in s korea 26 nuclear power plants will explode. Far worse than 50,000, nuclear bombs going off at once.

    The oligarchs have taken over completely. Humanity be damned.
    One of the nuclear plants in Texas was damaged from the three consecutive hurricanes this summer . So were two in florida.  
    They could blow next year, unless people do something. "Close All Nuclear Reactors." Most reactors in the us are in the south, and east are on the coast.

    They kept em running during to hurricanes to keep their profits up. All twenty of them.

    Michael Flynn plotted with the Russians to build dozens of new reactors in the middle east! Trump still wants to do it!

    A nuclear accident in Russia showered Europe ,with radiation last month.

    Trump wants to build more reactors here, give the reactor owners 11 billion dollars a year to keep rickety old pieces of shit reactors opened here.  Yet assholes like alex jones never mention this in their tirades about how great Trump is.
    That is, even though, nuclear reactors are not competitive with renewables and, ready to explode. More coal and uranium mining especially in national monuments is the plan. No epa. Frack the shit out of everthing for oil uranium and natural gas. Contaminate all water tables qith radioactive shit. Turn what is left of americas water supplies into radioactive piss water from fracking nuclear waste.. No health care. Totally evil bastards. Americans are just the most passive stupid-ignorant bastards in the universe.

    Half of japan is sick now . people trying to get out of there like crazy. Marco kaltofen found cesium 137 in the air in most of japan recently. 10,000 times normal or 600bq/kg. Enough to ruin the country. Which it is. We just hear a bunch of bullshit and lies. Don't eat any seafood or Japanese food.

    Trump will stop the internet soon. Better call about net neutrality.
    202-418-1000

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  10. Thank you all for the interesting and provocative comments!

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