A reference point

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Today is Juneteenth. Happy Juneteenth!

It's a day to celebrate the abolition of slavery, but also to remember that there remains quite a bit of road ahead on the path to true equality under the law in America. The hard work left to do is especially glaring this year, in light of the fact that the Department of Justice seems hell-bent on making a U-turn.

Nancy Pelosi issued an eloquent statement today about the holiday:

"In his famous Gettysburg address, President Abraham Lincoln promised a new birth of freedom in our nation. And today we commemorate the day of new birth in which all people in America were made free: June 19, 1865.

"Known as Juneteenth, this is the day when Union Major General Gordon Granger landed in Galveston, Texas to issue the President's executive order, known to us as the Emancipation Proclamation. Although the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863, it took almost two and half years for the Proclamation to be enforced throughout all of the United States.

"Juneteenth has evolved into a national day of reflection and celebration for millions of Americans across the country. Juneteenth is America's reminder of a past of inequality, and a future of justice for all citizens. It is a reference point from which to appreciate the progress made in our society, toward the ideal of equality that is America's heritage and hope."

Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker published a post last Friday detailing how clearly the DOJ Civil Rights division has been undermined by this administration. Every week, it becomes even more obvious.

I'm going to deviate a bit. It's not the true intention of the holiday, but I can't help thinking also about the way the world has advanced physically since 1865 and how news travels. Of course, part of the reason it took so long for word of the Emancipation to be delivered to the slaves in Texas was the fact that the Confederacy was in control and had no motivation for spreading that particular news item.

But news didn't travel so fast, anyway. Radio was still a generation away. And even sending a person somewhere wasn't that easy. There was no interstate highway system. When the 19th Century began, First Lady Abigail Adams got lost in the woods just trying to get from Baltimore to Washington D.C.

As with equal rights, it often seems that progress is "an arch wherethrough gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move," to be presumptuous enough to borrow from Tennyson. We just never seem to get there. You might be reading this post 10,000 miles from where it was written within minutes of its publishing. But a police officer still can't reliably tell a firefighter to get out of a collapsing building with an interoperable radio. The federal government couldn't even figure out help was desperately needed at the Superdome after Katrina. And the signal-to-noise ratio is so low these days that information doesn't penetrate even after it arrives, hence the Saddam was behind 9/11 poll results.

I think the good news is that we're close enough technologically that a simple change of leadership might be all it takes to get our nation communicating the way we ought to be. Just getting Ted Stevens away from a gavel was a good start. With enough pressure on the FCC, the Internet just might survive the threat of corporate control.

Equality under the law? Well, electing a president who will reverse some of the damage to the Justice Department will get us back on the road, at a bare minimum. I doubt there will ever be a Juneteenth when we can float out the Mission Accomplished banner. But as Pelosi said, today is a reference point and a chance to evaluate where we've been, where we are and where we are headed.

Gore on the Internet

Last year, DB had the pleasure of going to hear a speech delivered by former president Bill Clinton. While I gave the speech high marks overall, I was very disappointed with one aspect:

He spent most of his time discussing the Internet in terms of its other benefit: the ability to raise money. He mentioned the huge amounts raised on the Net by both Republicans and Democrats in 2004. He talked about the money raised for both the tsunami relief and Katrina.

All true, but Clinton came up terribly short here, and in the same manner as all the D.C. Democrats. Essentially, his only examples of Americans using the Internet to have a positive impact on the world involved a citizen typing in a credit card number or handing over $50.

No mention of the effect of the netroots. No mention of the unique opportunity for the public to use the Net to hold the government accountable. No mention of the Net as an incubator for thoughts and movements.

While I was away this past week, I read Al Gore's Assault on Reason. It is an outstanding book. Anybody who reads blogs regularly will already be aware of much of the book's examples from recent history. But Gore puts our recent decline in collective thought as a nation into a much-needed context.

One of the things that stood out to me was this refreshing conclusion:

In fact, the Internet is perhaps the greatest source of hope for reestablishing an open communications environment in which the conversation of democracy can flourish. It has extremely low entry barriers for individuals. The ideas that individuals contribute are dealt with, in the main, according to the rules of a meritocracy of ideas. It is the most interactive medium in history and the one with the greatest potential for connecting individuals to one another and to a universe of knowledge.

An important distinction to make is that the Internet is not just another platform for disseminating the truth. It's a platform for pursuing the truth, and the decentralized creation and distribution of ideas, in the same way that markets are a decentralized mechanism for the creation and distribution of goods and services. It's a platform, in other words, for reason.

Al Gore gets it. He always has.

Get your Furby out of my tubes

From CNet:

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a bill that would make it a federal felony for Webmasters to use innocent words like "Barbie" or "Furby" but actually feature sexual content on their sites.

Anyone who includes misleading "words" or "images" intended to confuse a minor into viewing a possibly harmful Web site could be imprisoned for up to 20 years and fined, the bill says.

This sounds like an easy-to-enforce can of worms they just opened.

The Pneumatic Tube from Alaska

The vacuum that represents Alaska in the Senate and chairs the Commerce Committee apparently knows as much about the Internet as a king crab. DB had heard Senator Stevens went on an incoherent rant about Net Neutrality, in which he appeared to bounce back and forth between arguments for each side, thinking he was making solely a case against the Snowe-Dorgan bill.

But holy crap.

Who could have possibly known that the man spearheading the telecom bill could be so unbelievably ignorant? When you actually listen to him deliver the rant (MP3) it's hard to believe he's even allowed near a microphone, let alone in a Senate office building.

It should be illegal for somebody this clueless to have any input whatsoever into the future of our national information infrastructure. That he got 10 other Senators to vote his way just shows how craven the GOP is in general.

Really, it's a fucking embarrassment and the people of Alaska should be ashamed.

UPDATE: Upon a closer listen, it appears Sen. Stevens used the term "Neternit" during his rant. DB objects.

A light at the end of the fiber?

After feeling down yesterday, when the Senate Commerce Committee failed to pass the Snowe-Dorgan amendment to protect Net Neutrality, DB is feeling better today. Especially after reading Matt Stoller's "The Seventh Inning Telco Stretch."

Never a boast or a brag

Though many of our awesome representatives in D.C. are willing to let Net Neutrality die because it's "a solution in search of a problem," they have no problem debating a Constitutional amendment to ban flag burning. Go figure.

Even though this entire debate is a waste of time and taxpayer money (love those self-voted pay increases) because there is clearly no danger of losing all our flags -- or even, say, three of them -- to crazy flag burners, it strikes DB that the opposite would be equally true.

Imagine that American flags were being burned so often that Congress would be debating something that actually happens all over the country. Think how bad things would have to be in this country for that to be the reality. If these same Senators ever live in an America like that, it's their own fault.

Of course, nothing says you believe in your country, Constitution and freedom of expression more than the confidence that it will survive any tiny gesture, including the burning of its very symbol. In short, you don't have to like the pieces of crap who burn flags. But it doesn't say much for your belief in freedom (or understanding of irony) to fight against expression in order to save it.

What happens if they succeed in passing this law? Will nobody burn a flag again? Doesn't it seem likely that someone angry enough to burn one today might still do it? OK, so now you can throw them in jail, but the flag is still toast and the gesture is no longer empty. That person's not just some jerk, but someone willing to make a real personal sacrifice in order to make whatever point.

Or maybe they'll just burn maps of the United States. Or the presidential seal. Or a photo of the president. Or maybe an "American flag" with the wrong number of stars or stripes. Will we be so uptight to amend the Constitution for all that?

Chairman to nowhere

It's important, while considering Net Neutrality, to consider who is fighting against it in the Senate: Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens.

The Commerce Committee is set to vote on the latest Net Neutrality bill on Thursday. We cannot sit back and wait for the results. Keep calling your senators and getting the message out to the public.

Although he "threatened" to quit the Senate last December, Stevens is still handing out taxpayer money and resources to his corporate buddies.

First, a quick review of just the last year of Stevens' highlights:

He introduced and passed a $3 billion subsidy for digital TV tuner manufacturers. He spearheaded the delay in getting our first responders the communications frequencies they need until 2009. He threatened to deny our troops funding by inserting his repeat-failure ANWR drilling provision into the defense bill -- a move called "disgusting" by his colleagues -- after having previously claimed that it had no place in such a bill. He swindled $223 million from the American people for a "bridge to nowhere."

Oh yeah, and he was one of nine in the Senate who voted for torture.

Now he's messing with the Internet. Among the latest news is this gem:

In a change favorable to cable, Stevens stripped from the bill language that would have forced Comcast Corp. to sell its Sports Net Philadelphia to DirecTV Inc. and EchoStar Communications Corp. Also gone are provisions allowing competitors to file FCC complaints to gain access to regional sports networks not owned by cable operator but to which a cable operator has exclusive rights.

Bummer for Stevens. His "Sports Freedom Act of 2006" is a no-go. But why did he want to interfere with teams' and leagues' contracts with cable companies anyway? After all, in an article about Net Neutrality, the Washington Post dutifully reported:

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) is open to consumer protections but is loath to interfere with commercial deals among phone and cable companies and the content providers, a committee staffer said.

You just cannot take this man at his word. Ever.

So now he's floating a new "compromise" for Net Neutrality: An Internet Bill of Rights, which is actually a toothless smokescreen, intended to appear as if there's any real protections for Net discrimination. If you can prove your ISP is messing with the services you use, you can complain to the FCC. Eventually, they may levy a fine up to $10,000.

Fortunately for us, ranking Democrat Daniel Inouye isn't fooled.

"The new draft's provisions on net neutrality utterly fail to protect consumers and preserve an open Internet," Inouye said in a statement.

"Under the current language, network operators will have the ability to dictate what the Internet of the future will look like, what content it will include and how it will operate.

The question is whether the general public will be fooled. Pick up a phone and call your senators. Call your local radio stations. The clock is ticking.

Being a senator is difficult

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has been all over the Net Neutrality issue and finds this gem:

Others on the committee questioned the need for "preemptive" action against a problem they're not convinced exists. If the discrimination that Net neutrality advocates fear does occur, such a public outcry will develop that "the chairman will be required to hold this meeting in this largest room in the Capitol, and there will be lines wandering all the way down to the White House," said Delaware Democrat Joseph Biden.

First of all, if the discrimination DB fears will occur does in fact come to fruition, the public outcry will be stifled. That's the entire point. And this blogger, for one, doesn't look forward to standing in a line to demand that Congress get off it's ass to restore the public's ability to communicate freely over the Internet. When they take away our rights, they don't give them back.

Then there's this:

[Arlen] Specter, for one, indicated that he would prefer looking at the issue on a "case-by-case" basis rather than issuing a "general rule" about what network operators can and cannot do--an approach favored by Internet companies. He said it may be more productive to negotiate less formal "standards" for network access with the players involved because writing new laws is "extraordinarily difficult, candidly, when you have the giants on both sides of these issues."

Are you kidding? Case-by-case? Where will they find the time with all the flags that have to be flame-retarded and gays that have to be kept single? Or will they leave it up to the "trial lawyers" and "judicial activists" to decide?

But by all means, don't write a new law, especially if it's going to be "extraordinarily difficult." Even if Senators Snowe and Dorgan have already written one for you.

And the worst part of Specter's nonsense is "when you have the giants on both sides of these issues." Maybe for just once in his miserable term, Specter ought to think about the people who aren't giants. Like the small business owner who won't stand a chance if Wal-Mart has paid for the Internet traffic to come their way.

In fact, the giants on one side of the issue wouldn't even exist today were it not for the level playing field that created the opportunities for them. If Specter wants to punt on the issue, then he should vote for the Snowe-Dorgan bill and leave the Internet the way it's been since the Web was born.

Net Neutrality is fundamental

DB posted the following in the comments section of FDL. Don't have time to really write this as a proper post, but it's important enough that it deserves some play, so here it is. This post will eventually be replaced by a more thoughtful missive.

Another thing about Net Neutrality because I’m not sure I really made the point I wanted to make (in case anybody’s listening)…

When the Bill of Rights was being debated, there were some people opposed to adding rights. Not because they were against freedom or speech or the right to a fair trial, but because they were afraid that some people would interpret the inclusion of certain rights as an open door to deny other rights that aren’t there.

We see evidence of this all time. When Alito was confirmed, Sen. DeWine asked him if the word “abortion” appeared anywhere in the Constitution. Alito could have pointed out (of course, he didn’t) that the Ninth Amendment states that it doesn’t matter if a right isn’t explicitly in the text; That’s not a good enough reason to limit a right.

The Ninth Amendment was the compromise. It states that “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

But they needed to make a compromise and include this amendment because it was clear to the Founders that without certain rights being untouchable — rights like the ability to openly discuss the actions of our government — there would be no hope of preserving any rights at all.

So this brings me back to Net Neutrality. It’s great that Yearly Kos is happening and everybody is inspired and ready to change the direction of this country. But without the freedom to discuss these issues on the Internet, that’s the end of all of this.

Freedom to share ideas on the Internet is, for our generation, the same as freedom of speech. And the GOP is limiting that right by handing it over to some corporations. These companies, who are already doing the NSA’s dirty work, have the potential to completely eradicate our ability to influence the direction of the country.

It is the fundamental issue on which all others depend.

UPDATE: For full disclosure as much disclosure as you're going to get here, DB's employer will likely be negatively impacted by the defeat of Net Neutrality. This blogger has not heard anything about the topic mentioned by any company executives, but it still seems clear this would be the case. On the other hand, Net Neutrality helps our competitors, too.

In any event, this issue is here on this blog because DB feels passionately about it's ramifications on the future of our democracy. And of course, by its very nature, this blog benefits from Net Neutrality. There are other things that could be blogged about here to help DB's employers, but that's not the purpose of this blog.

The McCurry Repor(t)

Is Mike McCurry trying to outdo Stephen Colbert's character with his own absurd and uninformed arguments?

On net neutrality, I feel like screaming "puh-leeeze." The First Amendment of the Internet is under assault!

Oh yeah, how many of you lifted a finger to protect the First Amendment when the Washington Post and other "MSM" cited it to ferret out the truth about WMD and the wars inside the U.S. intelligence community over the pre-Iraq war (and now pre-Iran war)? (And don't lecture me about how they failed to do their job -- I have had Pultizer Prize winning reporters tell me that they feel intimindated and they lack public support. Of course they -- and their editors-- feel that way. Most of the blogosphere spends hours making them feel that way).

Ah! Nothing like beginning an argument by implying that people haven't earned the right to express concerns about the erosion of a guaranteed right to express themselves. If that isn't ironic enough for you, consider the spectacular irony in the fact that what McCurry is arguing against -- Net Neutrality -- is the very thing that makes it a mathematical certainty that any generalization or assumption he could have made about his audience would be impossible to defend. It's just icing on the cake that his first assumption of a blog-o-sphere audience is that it is only a minority of us who care about a free press.

If McCurry wants to talk about the Washington Post and Americans doing what we can to defend our rights, fine, he can take a good look at this chart on the Washington Post's website. He may notice that the first time since the 2004 election that the president's approval rating was eclipsed by public disapproval of him was when the New York Times reported that he's been spying on us. We take our rights seriously, despite the fact that the media is too busy appeasing the power players to get that.

DB just doesn't know what to make of this sentence: "I have had Pultizer Prize winning reporters tell me that they feel intimindated and they lack public support."

Here's a tip for all reporters: When your phone rings, look at the caller ID. If it's Ken Mehlman's phone number, don't answer it. The people who want you to "ferret out the truth" have been here the whole damned time. If you can't find us, how the hell do you expect to find out any of Dick Cheney's secrets?

As Ricky Roma said in Glengarry Glen Ross, "Your excuses are your own!"

Colbert stood right in front of 2,600 witnesses -- all of the nation's top journalists -- looked President Bush directly in the eye and pointed out he had no clothes. Then he made him sit there for 10 minutes in his naked anger, watching a video of Colbert fumbling around for his keys and backing out of a parking space.

So how did the "MSM" react, Mike? Did they realize that their intimidation is a function of their own self-image? No, they pretended it never even happened. They barely reported it. They said he wasn't "funny."

You want to blame bloggers for "making them feel that way?" Give me a break. Tell your Pultizer [sic] Prize winning friend to grow some huevos.

The Internet is not a free public good. It is a bunch of wires and switches and connections and pipes and it is creaky. You all worship at Vince Cerf who has a clear financial interest in the outcome of this debate but you immediately castigate all of us who disagree and impune our motives. I get paid a reasonable but small sum to argue what I believe. How many of the net neuts out there are honest about the financial resources and special interests behind your side of the argument? Do you really believe this is good v. evil or just an honest disagreement about what will make the 'net flourish and prosper? What do you make of David Farber's recent caution about the unintended consequences of regulating the Internet?

Well, Mike, what do you think of "The Singularity Is Near" by Ray Kurzweil? Pick up a copy and then tell us that there's anything that can stand in the way of the continued growth of the Internet.

And again, stop assuming things about your readers. You haven't got a clue what you are talking about.

Your claim that the Internet is not a free public good ignores the fact that it was initially developed with public money, has been seeded with millions of pieces of public information and those wires and switches are running across public land. Proponents of Net Neutrality aren't calling for "regulation" of the Internet. The alternative is to allow corporations to regulate it and we're not naive enough to want that.

Some of us remember what the Internet was like in 1993-1994. When people on Compuserve were in a different world that those on AOL. We don't want to go back there, no matter how "creaky" you think the Internet has gotten in the six wonderful years since Bush has been at our helm. The idea of choosing between baseball and football, for example, when you sign up with an ISP stinks. Don't think it can happen? Try listening to baseball on Sirius or football on XM Radio.

Won't it be great when you can't send an evite to all your friends for your wedding shower because some of them have gmail accounts or yahoo accounts? Won't it be fantastic when your local ISP decides what information or opinions are acceptable, in their world view, for you to see?

I am against giving the FCC and other government regulators the power to decide how the Internet will build out in the future. That is what you net neuts are for. The Internet has worked absent regulation and now you want to introduce it for a solution to what? What content is being denied? What service is being degraded? What is not right with the Internet that you are trying to cure?

That's exactly the point. The Internet is functioning as it should. Could it be faster? Yes, and it will be. Could it be available in more places? Yes, and it will be. Do corporations involved in laying the next generation of fiber optic cables deserve the right to be able to fundamentally change the Internet so that they can decide what we can access? HELL NO!

Instead, you have some myth about dangers ahead if someone actually asks (horrors!) that we pay for the billions it will take to make the Internet to work in the decades ahead? Do you want to pay or do you want to make the giant content companies that will be streaming video and data rich services to pay? I'd rather have a robust Internet that can handle the volume of traffic that we will put on it in the near future rather than an public Internet where we all wait in line for the next porno-spammer to let his content go before we get to have arguments like this.

This is not an issue where there is a progressive, pro-little guy, pro-Dem stand versus the big bad companies that pay big bad lobbyists (what a joke you think I am one of them). This is a clear disagreement on principle about what will get us the next generation of the internet that will work for all of us.

Any one want to have a rational conversation about that or do you want to rant and rave and provide a lot of May Day rhetoric that is not based in any fact?

Did you really just ask "Do you want to pay or do you want to make the giant content companies that will be streaming video and data rich services to pay?"

And then immediately follow it up with "This is not an issue where there is a progressive, pro-little guy, pro-Dem stand versus the big bad companies that pay big bad lobbyists?"

What a dreadful, insulting and poorly spelled post that was. And DB will still fight hard so that everybody on earth has a right to read it... no matter what ISP they're stuck with in their neighborhood.

An evening with Bubba

DB was given a ticket to see Bill Clinton speak in Los Angeles on Thursday, so this blogger made the journey to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. On a side note, an opera will be debuting there next month, "Grendel," based on the 1971 John Gardener novel. Don't know much about the opera, but there's a great chance you'll do worse if you purchase just about any other novel the next time you visit a book store.

Clinton covered a number of topics and delivered an excellent, well-conceived, vintage Clinton speech. He did not use the opportunity to criticize President Bush, although he did articulate some policy differences. On the other hand, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pulled no punches in his introduction.

Villaraigosa said (paraphrasing here) he could remember a time when we sent our troops to battle for the reasons we gave them. He could remember a time when we had a president who was known far and wide for his intellectual curiousity and belief in science. He could remember a time when we left surplusses for our children and the future was not clouded with fear. He ended his introduction by saying that those times will come again (and maybe Bill Clinton will return to the White House in a more historic role).

Clinton began by remarking how high Villaraigosa's approval ratings are in Los Angeles and delivered his best line of the night.

"Eighty percent? I could've taken a boat to the middle of the Potomac and walked back to shore and my approval ratings wouldn't have been that high. The Republicans would be all over the radio. I can just hear Rush Limbaugh now... 'Bill Clinton can't swim.' "

Then he began to discuss his views on global interdependence and some of the world's big concerns. DB would just like to touch on a couple things the former president said, mostly because this blogger was disappointed with what could have been a home run, but turned out to be a bloop single.

Clinton said that there were two phenomena which have significantly impacted the world today: Non-governmental organizations (NGO's) and the Internet.

In discussing the Internet, Clinton described two ways in which its impact is significant: It can bring people together as a force for good, and it provides a mechanism for raising money from people of all means.

The only example Clinton gave of a non-financial contribution by users of the Internet, was SARS in China. He said that China was in denial over the disease and would have continued along that path had young Internet users there not flooded government websites with demands for action.

No examples of the internet influencing policy or ideas in America. Just China. The country where search results are filtered so nobody stumbles upon the word "democracy." Where the Rolling Stones are preparing to play a concert this week, but aren't allowed to play "Beast of Burden."

He spent most of his time discussing the Internet in terms of its other benefit: the ability to raise money. He mentioned the huge amounts raised on the Net by both Republicans and Democrats in 2004. He talked about the money raised for both the tsunami relief and Katrina.

All true, but Clinton came up terribly short here, and in the same manner as all the D.C. Democrats. Essentially, his only examples of Americans using the Internet to have a positive impact on the world involved a citizen typing in a credit card number or handing over $50.

No mention of the effect of the netroots. No mention of the unique opportunity for the public to use the Net to hold the government accountable. No mention of the Net as an incubator for thoughts and movements.

As DB types this, Fox News is passing off Pat Roberts' comments about Joe Wilson in the SCSI Report as the "findings" of the Senate and claiming that the NIE demonstrates absolute unity in the claims about WMD in Iraq.

But Clinton made no mention of the collective efforts of Net users to counter the dreadful effects of the consolidation of all American media into the hands of a small group of corporations. In fact, he even mentioned how much donations from the Net help candidates offset the high cost of television time. The last thing this blogger wanted to hear from Clinton was that the Internet is a great way to funnel money from hard-working Americans to the pockets of Rupert Murdoch.

The Democratic establishment just does not get it. They apparently have no ability to look to the future and anticipate where politics and technology are heading together. They are barely aware of where that junction exists today. It's not unlike the record industry, which was convinced just a decade ago that the cost of producing and selling CDs would remain so inexpensive compared to electronic delivery that there was no need to create business models for online purchasing. In two or three more election cycles, these politicians will be analogous to the record industry executives who have wasted billions in fruitless attempts to protect their audio data after technology already left them -- and continues to leave them -- in the dust.

Clinton echoed what we've heard from many of the party leaders... The Internet is a giant ATM. Only a new crop of smart candidates will prevent the Democrats from squandering the opportunity the Internet has provided them and it has been a long time since this party had enough political advantages to throw some away from neglect.

There were some great moments in his speech. He talked about global warming and pointed to England as a prime example that reducing emissions has a positive effect on the economy, contrary to what we are told by the Bush administration. He talked about bravery in Colombia. He talked about Darfur and using the U.N. and Nato to stop the violence.

In the end, most in attendance left looking inspired and gratified. But after hearing Clinton say that the Internet was one of the two great "miracles" of the 21st Century before praising it only for its fundraising capacity, DB left thinking mostly about sushi in Little Tokyo.