 photo by Duncan DavidsonBack in April, I wrote a post on MyDD titled 'Why You Can't Get Your iPhone', basically laying out the dynamic that's at work in the spectrum fight I've been blogging about since then. My interest in telecom policy comes from 2000, when I first read Larry Lessig and his work on free culture. I started blogging on net neutrality in 2005, and working against the COPE Act in the House led to a much richer understanding of how the right exercises power. It also led to the primary campaign against Al Wynn by progressive challenger Donna Edwards.
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If you're thinking about how to understand power in our political system, recognize that governance is not about winning elections, but about leverage points. And what's happening in Congress, at the FCC, in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street, and among grassroots progressives is an extraordinarily powerful event. This is the first sustained attack on right-wing corporate power in the form of telecom and cable monopolists, and we're making real progress. This was basically not going to happen as early as April, but I laid out the basic model for making it happen.
Silicon Valley is buzzing about the potential here, as are media reform groups (and smaller wireless companies). This is all part of the move to take back public airwaves from the people that give Imus-types privileged positions in public discourse. This is genuinely revolutionary stuff, and the FCC is going to rule on it soon. Hopefully we can get Ed Markey and John Dingell to hold hearings and force Chairman Martin to open up the spectrum.
That hearing happened, and something extraordinary resulted. Chip Pickering, a Republican from Mississippi and former Trent Lott staffer, came out with a progressive position on the public airwaves that is more aggressive than anything outlined by anyone except perhaps John Kerry and Ed Markey. The decision-makers at the FCC are Republicans and Democrats, so having a Republican leading on this is remarkable. This is not to suggest Ed Markey didn't make waves; he came out great today, and he scheduled the hearing. Right-wing FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is moving towards part of the solution here, which is amazing when you think of it. We have essentially convinced parts of the Bush administration to enact progressive principles. That is real power.
What we're really talking about here, from a movement perspective, is that ideas matter, and that ideas themselves have power. There is no better expression of progressive principles than the internet, a decentralized public sphere with consistent rules but no gatekeepers. But this internet could have been killed in its crib, and telecom companies tried to kill it, constantly. There were many walled garden approaches - AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy - that embedded control in the management of the network. The struggle to keep the internet gatekeeper-free was successful, which is why we exist at all. And the struggle is ongoing, not just to protect what we have as we did last cycle with the net neutrality battle. We're now trying to define the terms of the mobile future, with the iPhone showing a glimpse of the beauty and locked in control we may be subject to. We do not have to leave a better world to our children, and if the telecom lobbyists have their say, we won't. But what is going on
These are the kinds of fights we're going to have to have about global warming and health care. These are complicated and cross-cutting issues with swarms of lobbyists operating in secret, and massive multi-billion dollar companies on different sides of the issue. |
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