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Google and Obama, Sitting in a Tree…

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 29th, 2009 at 08:23 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

…plotting to pass Net Neutrality.

I’ve written in this space for a while about who the real Astroturfers are in the Net Neutrality fight. Google – and its puppets like Free Press – are promoting this idea that it’s a struggle between big telecommunications firms, and the little guys. Except the little guys are actually bigger Internet firms. The corporations pressing for Net Neutrality are Fortune 500 and even Dow Jones Industrial Average firms, with billions in cash ready to be spent on Net Neutrality, trying to defeat Proposition 8, or even promoting Barack Obama.

That last one makes the FCC’s rush to regulate look bad, given all the placements of Google people within the Obama administration as well as the nearly one million dollars that Google employees gave to the Obama-Biden campaign. How do we know that the secretive Obama White House isn’t directing the FCC to pay off Google?

After all, we know he’s giving donors special treatment. In fact, it has come out that FCC Chairman Genachowski himself was a major fundraiser for Obama, pulling in over a half million for the campaign. Why shouldn’t we believe that this is all a big circle of back scratching in the Obama adminstration, when he refuses to release the kinds of information we need to determine otherwise?

The President has played political games with information all along. He dangles his birth certificate on a string in order to distract the right. He’s keeping as little of the Obamacare agenda in writing as possible, because he knows if we read it and expose his plans, we can win the fight, so we end up with ridiculous spectacles like a Senate committee voting on a bill that hasn’t been written yet. And now he’s playing footsie with donors in secret.

We must encourage and join Senator McCain and Representative Blackburn in their fresh legislative efforts to stop the Google/Obama Net Neutrality scheme. We cannot allow this kind of quid pro quo to go unchallenged.

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COMMENTS

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  • USNJIMRET

    Any ‘legislation’ in the current Congress that has as innocent and friendly sounding a name as “Net Neutrality”……you just KNOW that it is going to be bad for the general public.
    Factor in that Google is all for it, and I can’t imagine a reason on Earth for someone with a working brain to believe it is a good idea.
    But maybe that’s just me being overly cynical.

  • red_refugee

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/13/the_skinny/main3257308.shtml

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    That’s openly paying for use of land.

    Buying the use of land, and buying influence, are two different things.

  • GregInFla

    Director of Citizen Participation?? What is this one?
    Then there’s the new Office of Social Innovation? What?

    Which Congressional laws established these offices?

    I know that there are plenty of others, but why is my tax $$$ paying for social innovation??? We gotta get Beck to look into this.

  • red_refugee

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/technology/13google.html

    NASA auctioning excess space at Moffett to the highest bidder would have been fine with me. But that’s not what happened. The Google boys did buy influence and it got them access to a government airfield.

    Liberal tycoons shouldn’t get special treatment regardless of who’s in the White House.

  • nickinvirginia

    Isn’t the idea of net neutrality to prevent an internet carrier from slowing down or speeding up websites based on their prerogative?

    For example: If comcast were to buy NBC, then they would speed up browser access to NBC.com, while slowing other things down, like ABC.com etc.

    I’m not very knowledgeable on tech issues; this is all I know about Net Neutrality. Someone explain.

  • red_refugee

    The last democrat administration brought us the Clipper Chip and Project Carnivore. This one will bring more of the same.

  • http://keydesignsllc.com bkeyser

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgtkey0811/4035931705/sizes/l/

  • billf

    Could it be that the things like Health Insurance, Bailouts, Broken Campaign Promises, Birth Certificate, Czars, etc are just distractions that will generate a lot of heat and get a lot of publicity while he quietly enacts the changes, like Net Neutrality, that he really needs to have happen early in his presidency to assure that his socialist agenda comes together.

  • libertymt

    Which is why most tech savy libertarian types (myself included) are largely conflicted about the issue.

    From a purely ideological position, net neutrality is more regulation and therefore bad. From a pragmatic perspective, the net was created by the government, is regulated by the government, and there are numerous existing regulations encouraging (or at least allowing) telecom monopolies, and these monopolies are able to block, filter, and steer their users away from their competitors content.

    Do you want the local internet provider to be able to control what websites you visit, or how well you can use them, to steer you in one direction or another? Because right now, they can and are doing so, such as in your example. In another (non-hypothetical) example, you have certain telecom companies blocking Skype, and forcing users to buy their service instead. Net Neutrality laws are an attempt to stop that.

    Personally, my position is that in an ideal world we wouldn’t have the government involved in any of this. But they are, and their interference has stopped or limited the potential for real competition from developing in many areas, creating these telecom monopolies. As long as these government regulations and the resulting monopolies exist, we need them to be open and free, and Net Neutrality does that.

  • Ausonius

    Back in the summer I began tracking the number of Google “hits” for the phrase “Impeach Obama.”

    On Google back in July and August the number of hits was above 10,000,000 and seemed to be growing. This was parallel with other search engines.

    Suddenly in early September the number of hits crashed to under one million on Google, bouncing between 700,000 and – today – 931,000.

    On Yahoo, however, the hits are at their highest ever: 17 million.

    Possibly Google would claim they have more accurate hits, with no dead links, etc.

    But 16 million dead links?

  • melvinwinter

    http://optoons.blogspot.com/2009/10/obama-convention-delegates-to.html

  • illinoisconservative

    I would almost prefer any regulation simply be a end-user bill of rights.

    Let the investors in the internet infrastructure do whatever the heck they like between each other and with the pieces they invest in.

    But, when an end-user connects, no provider or service may restrict or impede any access that user requests. I don’t mind the end-user being charged more for extra bandwidth or usage, as long as that is up front in an agreement.

  • makemyday

    It may not amount to much but stop using Google. If you have Google toolbar installed, disable it. If your default search engine is Google, change it to something else. If you use a Google phone, turn it in, just say it’s broke. No more Google maps, no more Gmail, just no more Google!

  • libertymt

    But the bottom line is that back in the early 1900′s, Theodore Vail got the government to OK and enforce AT&T’s monopoly on these lines. Even though that company’s monopoly has been broken up for almost 30 years now, the resulting telecoms still have their government granted/enforce local monopoly over the lines.

    The government simply won’t let competitors into the market, won’t let any other companies use the lines, supposedly because letting anyone else in would reduce the telecom profits and none of them would be able to expand their services.

    The best solution would be to take their government granted monopolies away and break them up so that net neutrality laws wouldn’t be necessary. But of course, no one in either party would be willing to do that. so we’re left either letting these companies abuse their monopoly positions (which again, are created totally by the government), or we regulate the networks with something like the Net Neutrality laws.

  • SilverIce9

    You are one of the only people other than myself I’ve heard on the net with the same perspective as me on this subject. I don’t post much here, since I don’t really think I’d have much to add (read: not very conservative), but I don’t see this as a liberal/conservative issue.

    Both realistic options suck.

    Regulations are most likely going to be a trojan horse, setting a precedent for government censorship down the road, and god only knows what else. It may stop the telcos from screwing the internet up as we know it, but something gives me a feeling it’s only being done to make naive liberals line up behind it as some kind of… us vs. them Sparta battle.

    However, there is not free market right now for internet, so fighting the regulations is barely even a conservative position. Right now, I can’t even get DSL where I live in SAN DIEGO! …And I live in the city. There is a monopoly on cable internet here, so half the city belongs solely to Cox (insert joke here) and half to Time Warner. I can pick all of ONE ISP for broadband, so as far as my person life is concerned, Cox may as well be a government unto itself controlling what I see.

    Can I please get a Teddy Roosevelt to get some competition back into this industry? I want a freaking free market solution, but it seems that it’s the least likely outcome here…. Am I way off base on this? I’d really appreciate a conservative’s response regarding what seems to me to be two horrible options on the table.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Read my diary archives though to see what they’re reall doing.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    When you’re calling for a champion of progressivism, you’re off base.

  • Aaron Gardner

    TR was a regulating progressive, read Liberal Fascism.

  • billf

    Would that include a Google calendar on the RedState web page?

  • illinoisconservative

    to be legislated into being so they can be allowed to use the infrastructure laid by existing companies (like Cox in your example of cable), I don’t think you will get much sympathy here.

  • dsvet

    That’s pretty funny.

  • makemyday

    There are other calendar widgets that could be used in it’s place. Google has some fine products out there, but their politics suck! I love Barbara Streisands singing but haven’t heard one of her songs in years (my choice). I’m old enough for AARP membership but am not. I think Sean Penn is a fine actor, but will not watch him perform. Google is not on my laptops or the systems at my business. Same thinking there. I’m the kind of guy that cancelled using FedEx in my business cause one of their drivers honked at me while I was riding my Harley.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    They don’t make any money off of that.

  • Richard Mullins

    If so, grow a brain because you need one. Really, heavy handed regulation sounds nice, but it stinks in the end. Just because the State might be encouraging monopoly’s is more the reason for you not having access to DSL. It’s wasn’t that long ago that DSL wasn’t available at my parents house(older technology for DSL) then they managed to upgrade the lines so they could take advantage of DSL. No ham fisted regulations, but simple technology did the trick. If heavy regulation is so great, why doesn’t work. Really, letting competition instead of forcing it, is the way to go. I don’t think you see that.

  • jnoeagle

    Screwed everything up in the communications industry? Wasn’t AT&T like a common carrier in the olden days? Where they had to carry all legal traffic and the wires/airwaves were never to be owned by the editorializers?

    Seems like that would be a good idea, so it probably would never happen.

    Unrelated thought: What is the specific oath that Congresscritters take on assuming office? It seems probable many of them are violating any oath promising fair practices, honesty, and public service to the citizens. Could they be sued for something?

  • gailmarie

    http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/196/32085/
    net neutrality, which would take the Internet out of the hands of private …
    http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/32549/
    http://www.glennbeck.com/content/show/2009-10-19/
    .
    just to get you started… this guy Glenn he never sleeps trying to do all the research for us. Lots more behind net newtrality. Dont be fooled, Get off the Koolaid. No good can come of it.. WAKE UP

    if you dont want to look deeper… listen to makemyday guy

  • SilverIce9

    Is being read correctly. I was basically calling for the government not to regulate the internet at all, but to split the ISPs into smaller companies. If there was competition, there is no need for the regulation. One ISP (Cox or ATT) could ban whatever they wanted and make cox.com the fastest web site in the world, but nobody would sign up for it. So I was trying to make an argument for less regulation. I’m not a history major, admittedly, and there is certainly no reason for name calling. I’m pretty far from “brainless,” by the way. I run my own very successful small business, and still find time to live a fulfilling life. That takes brains.

    I invoked Teddy simply because I remembered that he split up a monopoly or two, and was not passing judgement about his success or politics, but I can see how that could have been misconstrued.

    I guess to sum it up…. Would conservatism endorse splitting the ISP companies (not something really conservative) to achieve the goal of great competition and no regulation (something conservative). I think that’s what I was getting at, but it was late when I posted. Thanks for the input though. I’ve been a daily reader of this site for quite a while (even longer under a long-forgotten username), and occasionally post.

  • SilverIce9

    from you Richard: Yes, not only do I think it’s like that everywhere, I KNOW it’s like that everywhere. I’ve lived in nine states in the last seven years, and have never had more than two choices for broadband. That is not competition. When I want a computer, I can buy from 50 companies, and prices always go down. When I want paper towels, I can buy from 20 companies, and I’m quite happy with the quality of Bounty. On TV, there are hundreds of channels competing against each other for my eyes. I’m not here to push a viewpoint, I just see competition as important, even as important as blocking regulations.

  • martyinaz

    Obama is a Marxist socialist/communist, Look at any part of his agenda, it always takes from those with ability and gives to those with need..

    Government is a disease masquerading as the cure for all society. Robert Lefevre

  • olddog

    the internet,. it will be the old computer saying, gigo (garbage in garbage out ), because that’s what you will have when government controls your thoughts on line. Government has been controlling what we know, for a long time ,but since the internet happened, information flowed more freely, allowing people to find out how crooked our system has become in Washington, because the “drive by media” aren’t giving info to you straight up.
    ONE OLD DOG