The progressive blogosphere spends a lot of time discussing campaign strategy. Every day, thousands of times over, we critique campaign messaging, debate the quality of ads, muse about targeting strategies, and suggest new lines of attack. The problem is, as Matt has often pointed out, the only help the Obama campaign wants comes in the form of campaign donations and volunteers to work on field operations. So, no one is really listening to our suggestions. We are not making a difference on messaging.
There isn’t anything wrong with donating to the Obama campaign, or in volunteering to do voter registration, phonebanking, or other forms of field work. Those are important things to do, and there is real pride and dignity to being a political volunteer. The problem is, if you feel like I do, that it just isn’t enough. For one thing, the Obama campaign has been consistently losing ground for the past two plus months, so it doesn’t feel like what it is doing is working. Second, not everyone’s best political skills lay in field organizing, especially if, like me, you are introverted (I’ve done some real field work, but it has been painful). Third, donating to a campaign is often a one-off endeavor, and lacks of satisfaction of continued engagement. Besides, maybe the money won’t be spent effectively, anyway. Finally, if the netroots are just taking orders from large Democratic institutions, then we really just don’t seem like a very interesting movement to me. Whatever happened to taking on the system and changing it with people power?
Taking the solid advice of Open Left commenter Will, rather than just complaining about this state of affairs, I decided to start running my own ads. Instead of feeling disempowered by narratives I can’t do much to change and messaging that doesn’t speak for me, now I have my own anti-McCain ads. The two ads will appear across the entire state of Pennsylvania, on about three-dozen different Google keyword searches for John McCain and Sarah Palin. It feels really good, too. Here are the ads:
It is my money, my message, my targeting. Based on the keywords and cost-per-click rate that I chose, Google estimated that my ads will result in 25 click-thrus a day, costing me a little under $10 a day. However, the ads will be viewed by exponentially more people and, because of the keywords I chose, only by people looking for information on the campaign. Further, as I learn what messages work and which ones don’t, if I want to fit daily talking points or the latest scandal, I can easily change the ad. Also, I can change the locations where I am targeting on a moment’s notice.
You can do this too. In fact, you should do this too. In the extended entry, I explain why and how.
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I started my off-and-on series of posts about Malaysian politics with a look at how the blogosphere was influential in shattering the decades-old power lock of the ruling Barisan National Coalition, and it’s fitting that I end it with a look at how badly the ruling party has reacted to this shift:
Malaysia’s leading political blog was being blocked yesterday in
what was seen as a crackdown on internet websites credited with
contributing to government losses in this year’s general election. The
move came as former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was being sworn
in as the new opposition leader following a by-election victory this
week that returned him to parliament for the first time in a decade…The
Malaysia Today website was blocked by state-owned Telekom Malaysia, the
country’s leading internet service provider, on the orders of the
Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, which said comments
posted on it were “insensitive, bordering on incitement”.
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There already have been, and will continue to be, protesters at the Democratic convention in Denver. Without doubt, the protesters who will receive the most attention at the PUMAs, although the terms “media attention” and “protesters” don’t mix much these days. A quick search for PUMA on Google News shows exponentially more results for a shoe company’s apparently botched endorsement of Usain Bolt that about anything happening stateside right about now.
But what I want to say about the convention related PUMAs might cut against the grain a little bit. Don’t argue with them, and don’t just ignore them, either. Rather, we should celebrate them. They aren’t helpful, or savvy, or even apparently making any demands. They are, however, the inevitable residue of several positive developments (more in the extended entry):
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David Weinberger and Harold Feld both dispatch with McCain’s tech policy specifics. Basically, it’s not a tech policy, it’s just handing over the internet to corporate interests along with some tax credits for research.
But enough about all those details, let’s move straight to mocking the insanely narcissistic sub-headings of every part of the plan. The most significant part of the plan is his opposition to net neutrality, a section he describes under this heading.
When Regulation Is Warranted, John McCain Acts
Seriously, this is approaching Chuck Norris-level aggrandizement. How delusional does this guy have to be to imagine himself the hero of every situation he’s in, to the point that he has to frame himself as a white knight on regulating packet shaping over the internet? I’m actually kind of impressed.
Here are the rest of the sub-headings. They are of course not about technology, they are about John McCain.
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Yesterday, if you listened closely, you could hear the sound of John McCain selling off the internet to his campaign backers, the cable and telecom interests. After being shocked by a 3-2 vote punishing Comcast for illegal behavior at the FCC, cable interests are freaking out and using every tool at their disposal to reinstitute discipline among wavering Republicans.
The cable and telecom pushback started with former telecom lobbyist and current FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, who is desperate to become Chairman of the FCC under a McCain administration, launching a salvo against internet freedom, claiming that net neutrality would lead to censorship of the internet and requirements that bloggers and sites like Google offer ‘equal time’ to different views. This incoherence was quickly picked up by the Drudge Report, all to be timed with the coming release of McCain’s technology policy, which is slated to come out this week or next. McDowell, who of the five FCC Commissioners is by far the most favorable to cable, did this at the Heritage Foundation. He even warned his side that there are more dissident conservatives like Kevin Martin getting ready to come out for net neutrality, a clear sign they know they are losing this fight and need to reframe their strategy.
McDowell denounced net neutrality under the guise that it’s intertwined with the Fairness Doctrine, which he says Obama will reimpose. McDowell wouldn’t actually explicitly say that net neutrality and the Fairness Doctrine are the same thing, means, because he knows he’d get laughed out of the room, but he implied it. Here’s his statement.
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I’m hearing from friends that the FCC just voted 3-2 to punish Comcast for illegally blocking internet traffic to some customers who used file-sharing software. This was a bipartisan decision, with Republican Kevin Martin standing up to vicious party and media pressure to side with Democrats Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps. Though Comcast will litigate the order and the order carries no fine, this is a precedent setting move. A few years ago, no one thought that the FCC would move to enforce its ‘principles’ of an open internet, figuring they were simply fig-leafs to the public interest community. With the tremendous public pressure on the issue and the egregious behavior by Comcast (and Verizon censoring NARAL’s text messages and AT&T; censoring Pearl Jam), the logic became too compelling to ignore.
In a series of important moves, Barack Obama came out strongly for net neutrality, every Democratic Senate challenger came out for net neutrality, and once the Democrats solidified, a few others like Republican Chip Pickering and Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin chose to protect the internet from aggressive censorship-prone corporations like Comcast. The McCain campaign, though it’s against net neutrality, has been reduced to saying that the issue is not a ‘President of the United States’ issue and that it’s ‘inside baseball’ not worth public discussion. The backlash has been so aggressive that even McCain, who is owned by telecom and cable interests wholesale, doesn’t want to fight here.
There’s another lesson here, and that’s the real meaning of bipartisanship. We started this fight in 2006 with a bipartisan consensus against us, and gradually we’ve been able to flip the Democratic Party on our issue. And now we’re beginning to flip Republicans. There was a lot of whining that net neutrality was becoming a ‘partisan issue’, but what we’re learning is that winning a fight involves first pushing an issue through one party, making it partisan, and then making it bipartisan though the other party. The intellectual coherence of the argument, not whether you have a fig leaf Republican or a conservative Democrat on your side, is the politically powerful tool.
Republican Kevin Martin deserves real praise. He stood up to the forces in his party, the minority Leader in fact, and a vicious conservative press corps, and pushed through a protection that will help preserve an open internet. Copps and Adelstein have persevered for years in the wilderness, and now they and all of us get to savor a genuine victory.
To up the pressure on Republican FCC Chair Kevin Martin, Comcast has dispatched Republican Minority leader John Boehner to write Martin a mean letter. Boehner’s letter quotes the dishonest Wall Street Journal editorial I took apart yesterday, and attacks Martin for being heavy-handed and showing poor judgment. It’s funny how quickly Comcast’s Republican stooges jump to do whatever it is the company wants.
When I want something from my cable company, they rarely respond within 24 hours.
Back in May, we did a fundraiser for OpenLeft, and 210 of you sent us a total of $11,198. I think it’s time you get a report of where we’ve put some of that cash, and even some context stacking us against superlobbyists so you can (partially) judge the value.
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So Michael Powell is drafting John McCain’s broadband and technology policy, and here’s what he says about net neutrality, broadband, and media consolidation.
“Those issues are in the weeds,” Powell said. “They’re the FCC issues. A lot of the FCC’s issues aren’t ‘president of the United States’ issues. I understand how people want to talk about them, but some of it is inside baseball.”
Powell is on the board of Cisco, the company that is going to profit handsomely by selling packet shaping equipment once net neutrality is gone. That quid pro quo is perfectly understandable, and in this case, it is a ‘president of the United States’ issue.
Don’t worry your pretty little head about all this complicated policy stuff. And of course, if you lose your job or your favorite web site starts to slow down, it’s all in your head, you whiner.
A bipartisan majority of the Federal Communications Commission has reportedly voted to punish Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, for blocking consumers’ access to the open Internet.
According to press reports, Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein have voted with Chairman Kevin Martin for an “enforcement order” that would require Comcast to stop blocking and publicly disclose its network management practices. The order is adopted once all five commissioners have cast their votes.
Our friends at the FCC, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, helped form part of a 3-2 majority to punish Comcast. The FCC is a regulatory body run by 5 commissioners, 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats. Like many agencies, the party that holds the White House holds the majority on the FCC. Kevin Martin, the Republican chair, voted with us on this one because he is terrified of Ed Markey, Congressional oversight, and the millions of people watching him.
It’s a significant precedent for this body to punish a large corporation. The FCC just does’t do that, if you know what I mean. And the commission did it under Republican leadership, so just wait until there’s a Democrat in the White House, one who is actually with us on a universal internet.
The chatter today is still about Obama being in Europe and drawing crowds of hundreds of thousands of people. It’s a fierce echo of JFK.
Here he is.
Obama impressed in Europe, but Steve Clemons is critical. Not only did Obama miss the bureaucratic heart of Europe – Brussels – but he took no chances with his ‘no walls’ speech. Had he spoken in Israel with that theme, it would have been significant.
One can’t be about hope, no walls, and leap-frogging into a different reality than the mess we have today when there’s no pressure and nothing on the line. What matters is whether or not that message is as resonant in the context of controversial issues where tough decisons and heavy-lifting are needed.
Our work on Senate Democrats went big on Digg. Sarah Lai Stirland at Wired covered it, as did the Politico, Talkingpointsmemo, and Larry Lessig.
The Food industry has screwed itself.
The apparent but unintended consequences of the lobbying success: a paper record-keeping system that has slowed investigators, with estimated business losses of $250 million. So far, nearly 1,300 people in 43 states, the District of Columbia and Canada have been sickened by salmonella since April.
A Quantas jet landed with a huge hole in the side. There’s video, and it’s terrifying.
The Housing bill offers something for first time home buyers, so any new purchasers of homes on OpenLeft, check it out.
This LA Times poll confirms what Chris has been saying, though overstates the case. Obama has slipped a bit in the polls.
The CBC is just lovely.
And yet, even before the menthol controversy erupted, tobacco money was gradually becoming less crucial to the group, as it attracted more money from a broader segment of industries, including drug makers.
Tom Perriello is going after Virgil Goode on homeowners.
Art Brodsky is once again going after the telecom and cable interests.
Texas is switching over as CQ ups a Democrat’s chances.
Texas’ 7th(New Rating: Republican Favored. Previous Rating: Safe Republican). With more than $1 million in his campaign account as July began, Democrat Michael Skelly, a wind energy executive who is taking on four-term Republican Rep. John Culberson , is among the best-funded challengers in the nation.
One day, Congress will be in the pocket of big solar and big wind.
While Adelson’s reported $30 million-plus has been generally welcome on the right, a number of Republican strategists complain bitterly that Adelson’s micromanaging and interference with the organizations he is funding, especially Freedom’s Watch, has resulted in staff resignations and abruptly canceled projects, with little, his antagonists argue, in the way of results.
Among the staffers who have resigned from Freedom’s Watch or been nudged out are former Freedom’s Watch president Bradley Blakeman, communications director Matt S. David and rapid response specialist Robert Terra.
“Now we’re at a stage in the presidential campaign, if there was a group that could effectively advocate for the issues that are important to John McCain, it would be a good thing,” Terry Nelson, then-McCain campaign manager, told the New York Times in April. “But there’s nobody there that’s ready to do it. I think people hoped Freedom’s Watch would play that role.”
Ok, so I just broke the news that every Senate Democratic challenger has come out for net neutrality, and that there is basically no telecom and cable money going to Democrats. What about the other side?
I need your help to figure that out. Here’s a chart, with all Democratic candidates and their Republican opponents. How much money from telecom and cable companies is going to the Republicans? I used OpenSecrets to find out the amount Susan Collins and Ted Stevens are getting. Can we fill out the rest of this chart?
Put numbers for the rest of the candidates in the comments. Hopefully we’ll find a few who don’t get huge sums of money from the telecom and cable interests, and we can lobby them for net neutrality.
For the last few months, we’ve been posting Democratic Senate challenger positions on net neutrality here at OpenLeft. Since we started posting, we’ve been getting in statements and positions, from blogs like Cotton Mouth and the Political Base, from the candidates themselves, and from readers who took the time to ask and send in statements. I’m happy to report that every single Democratic challenger with more than $500k in cash on hand has announced their support for net neutrality. This is a milestone for the fight for internet freedom. I included statements reacting to this news from Senator Byron Dorgan, Speaker Pelosi, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, Google public policy director Alan Davidson, and Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu.
One thing you’ll notice is that there is basically no organized telecom or cable money going to any of these candidates, with the exception of Al Franken, Mark Warner, and Mark Udall. Franken and Warner both had careers with cable or telecom companies, so they have friends in those industries, and Udall is a sitting House member.
Democratic Senate candidates (non-incumbent), campaign contributions from Cable/Telecom PACs, expressed positions on net neturality and candidate contacts:
Tim Wu, Professor at Columbia Law School and co-author of Who Controls the Internet? “Net neutrality is slowly becoming one of those political sacraments. It’s not like Social Security yet, but it’s getting there. The basic principle of a fair and open internet is the kind of thing you’d have to hate apple pie to be against.”
Alan Davidson, the Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs for Google:, “”Keeping the Internet free and open is something that policymakers on both the left and the right should support, and we hope to see the ranks of net neutrality supporters increase in Washington next year. The Internet’s neutral design has enabled it to become a powerful engine for innovation, and America’s continued economic growth depends on it remaining open.”
Adam Green, Moveon.org: “This important moment shows the power of citizen driven advocacy,” said Adam Green of Moveon.org. “A guy on his blog just preempted the work of millions of dollars of telecom lobbyists. OpenLeft deserves a lot of credit for leveraging its voice during this election season and getting these candidates on the record. ”
Josh Silver, Free Press Action Fund Executive Director : “Net Neutrality is an issue that every member of Congress should champion. We applaud Open Left for holding our leaders accountable for protecting the open Internet.”
Jonathan Adelstein, FCC Commissioner : “It’s inspiring to see that the movement for internet freedom is tapping the same American spirit that fueled the movement against media consolidation. Working together, we can make sure that the internet remains open and neutral – of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “Since its inception, the internet has been characterized by its openness – its freedom – its equality. Without net neutrality, America’s small businesses and entrepreneurs could be left in the slow lane with inferior internet service, unable to compete with the big corporations that can pay internet providers toll charges to be in the fast lane. Bloggers could be silenced by skyrocketing costs to post and share video and audio clips. Net neutrality will prevent those toll lanes, allowing the innovative tradition of the internet to continue and flourish by enacting protections that ensure all consumers are able to access any content they wish with the same broadband speed and performance. The people opposed to net neutrality are not the entrepreneurs, the thinkers, the innovators who brought us to where we are technologically – they are the people who did not innovate in the first place. We must continue this fight.”
Patric Verrone, Writer’s Guild of America, West: “Net neutrality is a critical fight for writers and others working in the entertainment industry. We must not forget the lessons that old media systems have taught us, in which global media conglomerates have created barriers to entry into the marketplace and taken ownership and creative control of the TV shows and movies we create.
The Internet is a great equalizer in this struggle. Evidenced most recently by Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible web series, a burgeoning market for original, online content is emerging, and members of the WGAW are poised to create the next generation of entertainment content for the world, free from the gatekeepers that have come to control broadcast television and cable.
We at the WGAW have been educating our members about “Internet freedom” and have been pressing upon all political leaders the reasons why we must protect the next generation of media production. But net neutrality affects more than just writers. It affects the entire American public. Preserving Internet freedom allows consumers to access the entertainment, information, and news of their choosing. We are pleased that candidates are lining up to support net neutrality and we look forward to working with all elected leaders to preserve a free and open Internet.
In a world filled with oxymorons like jumbo shrimp and Hollywood accounting, we are proud to be part of the “fight for neutrality.”
Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge: “A free and open Internet is a necessary part of our society. It enhances creativity, innovation, democracy, education, commerce and every other aspect of what we do. We hope that Congress next year will agree and will return to consumers the rights they once had to a communications network unfettered by private interests acting in their own behalf, instead of on behalf of the public.”
Thania St. John, League of Hollywood Women Writers and Member, Writers Guild of America, West: “We are enthused that Democratic Senatorial candidates are lining up to support Internet freedom. The principle of an open and democratic Internet is as American a principle as we have.
The goal of the League of Hollywood Women Writers is to educate candidates and elected officials about the critical media issues facing writers and other creative talent working today. We have prioritized meeting with Senatorial candidates to discuss these key areas as we feel that a free Internet is important to every American, not just those of us in the entertainment industry. We are helping to fundraise for candidates that share our views and hope to meet with those who would like to hear more.
Maintaining the Internet as a free and open marketplace of ideas and information benefits us all. It also affords true content producers the ability to create and distribute creative product, while maintaining ownership and creative control over their work. This is something the ‘old media’ system simply does not allow. We can not allow the future flow of ideas and information to be owned and operated by a handful of conglomerates as it is today in traditional broadcasting. This affects every aspect of our lives, from politics to advertising to education to entertainment.
We must take a stand now and we implore all elected officials and the FCC to make this a priority until we ensure Internet freedom.”
Statements from candidates are below.
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I’ve watched the new Health Care for America Now launch. It’s an extraordinarily diverse coalition backed by $40M, with some remarkably talented organizers on board from three generations, from the New Left to the 1980s PIRG/PFAW left to the current internet left. It’s the first serious attempt from progressives on the health care side to govern, and they are building off an important victory in their move to get rid of privatized Medicare plans.
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“I support net neutrality and its promise of equal access to the information that is so vital to our lives on the internet.
The internet’s role in our daily lives has grown exponentially in the last dozen years. It has created opportunities that we could not even imagine before: children, in their homes and classrooms, can study the universe as if they were visiting in a NASA telescope, families can read about medical advances as if they are sitting in the best medical libraries, and small businesses can find suppliers and buyers across the country and compete with larger corporations.
On the internet we choose what we read, unmediated by the preferences of governments or businesses. I support our equal access to this information and will continue to do so when I am in the US Senate representing the people of New Hampshire.”
And here’s Ronnie Musgrove:
“In such a short time, the internet has developed into a key tool for our free society. It has driven economic development, enabled innovation, stimulated political discussion and provided new forums for the exercise of our First Amendment right of free speech. Net Neutrality is vital to keeping the internet free and open, and protecting access to its information for all Mississippians and Americans.”
Yesterday, Georgia Democrats voted in their Senate primary election. Bushie-turned-Obamaniac Vernon Jones came out on top with 40.3% of the vote. Jones’ closest competitor, former Georgia assemblyman Jim Martin, managed to bring in 34.3%. The two will face-off in an August 5 runoff election. Vietnam vet Josh Lanier, the only Dem in the primary battle to come out in favor of Net Neutrality, finished in fifth place with 4.1%.
The latest on Dem Senate challengers and Net Neutrality:
Democratic Senate candidates (non-incumbent), campaign contributions from Cable/Telecom PACs, expressed positions on net neturality and candidate contacts:
“Favors” denotes position expressed supporting net neutrality. Follow the links to see them yourself.
“Uncommitted” denotes no expressed position supporting or opposing net neutrality.
* – Georgia Democratic primary runoff to be held on August 5.
** – Tennessee Democratic primary election to be held on August 7.
*** – Wyoming Democratic primary election to be held on August 19.
Check out the extended entry for official statements on NN received from candidates Kleeb, Merkley, Noriega and the cousins Udall!
UPDATE #1: Andrew Rice gets a word in edgewise–below the fold.
UPDATE #2 (7/18): Welcome aboard, Ronnie Musgrove!
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I just got an email from Kay Hagan’s campaign on net neutrality.
“I support net neutrality because it speaks to the values central to our American Democracy – free speech and equal opportunity. With an open internet we can ensure communities throughout the state of North Carolina and the nation receive equal access to the internet as well as the information contained there, to help ensure our country can compete on a global level.” Senate Candidate Kay Hagan (D-NC)
I also got affirmation from Mark Udall’s campaign and will post a statement when I receive it. (UPDATE) Here it is:
Congressman Udall believes telecommunications laws must support a competitive market that provides the most options to consumers at an affordable price. He also wants to protect the freedom of the Internet by ensuring network neutrality. In fact, he has voted to ensure that Internet providers do not block or degrade legal content on the Internet. In 2006, Congress considered reforms to telecommunications law that contained much needed updates to the last major reform in 1996. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) proposed an amendment to that legislation in support of net neutrality. Congressman Udall voted for the Markey amendment but, unfortunately, it was not adopted. The underlying legislation, which Congressman Udall voted for with some reservations, passed the House but was stymied in the Senate. Congressman Udall continues to support network neutrality.
And Andrew Rice.
When I am U.S. Senator, I will support legislation similar to the Freedom Preservation Act, which aims to keep the Internet open and free for everyone, not just subscribers to large cable and phone companies. I am like millions of American who rely upon an open Internet on a daily basis. I will work to preserve broadband access for the general public so that all users have equal access to high speed Internet and are not dependent on commercial gatekeepers.
I’m assuming he means the internet freedom preservation Act.
The only viable Senate candidates that have not come out for net neutrality at this point are Jeanne Shaheen of New Hamsphire, Andrew Rice of Oklahoma, Bob Tuke of Tennessee and Ronnie Musgrove of Mississippi
Allen, Begich, Franken, Hagan, Kleeb, LaRocco, Lunsford, Merkley, Noriega, Rice, Slattery, Udall, Udall, and Warner are all for net neutrality.
Democratic Senate candidates (non-incumbent), campaign contributions from Cable/Telecom PACs, expressed positions on net neturality and candidate contacts:
“Uncommitted” denotes no expressed position favoring or opposing net neutrality
“Conflicted” denotes positions expressed both favoring and opposing net neutrality
* – Georgia Democratic primary election to be held on July 15. Runoff election to be held on August 5.
** – Tennessee Democratic primary election to be held on August 7.
*** – Wyoming Democratic primary election to be held on August 19.
Check out the extended entry for official statements on NN received from candidates Kleeb, Merkley, Noriega and (Tom) Udall!
* UPDATE * July 11: Welcome Kay Hagen on board! Also, Mark Udall’s official statement in the extended entry.
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Periodically Redstate’s Erick Erickson, a blog run by young GOP establishment consultants (Erickson is proud of being dubbed the 69th most influential conservative by the London Telegraph and authored a voter ID law), writes a few really long posts attempting to spin out liberal conspiracy theories. Today he went after Larry Lessig, Google, and Free Press as advocates for ‘socializing’ broadband. In a standard elitist conservative argument, Erickson attacks the GOP base itself while spinning a ridiculous style fantasy of a giant liberal conspiracy with the new coalition InternetforEveryone.org.
What we do know is that Larry Lessig cropped up again. Barack Obama’s technology advisor was a speaker at the announcement of the organization and is listed as a member along with Google. Then there is the Sunlight Foundation, which pushes for all sorts of openness. Lessig and Google’s Kim Scott are on the Sunlight Foundation board and the Sunlight Foundation is listed as a member of Internet For Everyone – I thought incest like this was only legal in Alabama.
Ha ha, incest jokes against the Republican base. I wonder why Republicans are so unenthusiastic about their party elites right now.
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I just got an email from Andy Barr at the Franken campaign. Franken is strongly for net neutrality, having talked about it on his radio show, and he’s putting up a position on his website to that effect.
Mathematician and IL-17 State House candidate Daniel Biss sent me this email about his experience door-knocking.
conversation at a door today (talking to a 25-ish man)
Me: Hi, I’m running for State Rep and I wanted to introduce myself. [brief bio redacted] What issue is most important to you?
Other guy: Well, I’m not really all that into politics. None of this matters to me. Except for net neutrality.
Wifi on Steroids: The fight over freeing the airwaves is going to heat up later this summer, based around something called ‘White Spaces’. Basically, white spaces are parts of the public airwaves that are going unused but could be a mobile broadband network unregulated by any telecom or cable company. It would be wifi on steroids and let you use any phone with any network, or even design your own phone. It means jobs, innovation, and a mobile economy. The broadcasters and telecom giants are fighting tooth and nail against it, the major tech companies are beginning to get serious about engaging.
Alliances are beginning to form around open internet issues, the progressive base with the technology space. For politicians, white spaces means jobs jobs jobs, for us, white spaces means unlocked iphones and cheap neutral internet access, and for the telecom and media companies, it means that they lose their cartel status.
Update: The Kleeb and Noriega campaigns have written in to say they are both for net neutrality and will have statements up soon.
Democratic Senate candidates (non-incumbent), campaign contributions from Cable/Telecom PACs, expressed positions on net neturality and candidate contacts:
“Uncommitted” denotes no expressed position favoring or opposing net neutrality
“Conflicted” denotes positions expressed both favoring and opposing net neutrality
GA, OK, TN, WY yet to complete Democratic primary selection
Commenters, please let me know if I’m missing any information on these candidates. With any luck, this chart will be updated early and often.
* UPDATE #1 (7/1): See the extended entry for statements from Jeff Merkley and Tom Udall. OK gets recognition, too.
* UPDATE #2 (7/1): Welcome Al Franken to the club, too.
* UPDATE #3 (7/2): Check out the comments for Scott Kleeb’s statement in favor of NN.
* UPDATE #4 (7/2): Ditto Rick Noriega.
Well we smashed our goal, something I think all of us can get used to around here. Part of what we’re going to do with our site is build a culture around Better Democrats, with things like a Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq and net neutrality.
Earlier today, Karl (who you are sponsoring) put up a page on the Democratic Senate candidates who are out on net neutrality. Subsequent to putting up the page, the Tom Udall and Jeff Merkley campaigns contacted us to let us know they are for net neutrality. We have some work to do with Kay Hagan, Al Franken, Ronnie Musgrove, Scott Kleeb, Rick Noriega and Mark Udall.
We’re also going to have a chart up for House candidates. It is far easier to establish positions for these candidates now before they come into the House, so this is money well-spent. It’s not often that we get to outsmart AT&T; lobbyists who spend about $2M a cycle on their PAC (which is just one of many telecom PACs), but this is one place we can do it.
I’m listening to Brad Burnham, a partner at Union Square Ventures, discuss why he’s joining a new coalition called Internet for Everyone. His partner, Fred Wilson, blogs at a popular site called A VC, and they are some of the only venture capitalists to actual involve themselves in politics as a vehicle for positive social change. Robin Chase, co-founder of Zipcar, and Vint Cerf, chief technology evangelist at Google, are also speaking. At the same time as bloggers and new progressive movement organizations emerge, a small core of business leaders is taking the lead on progressive values within their companies.
Overcoming the libertarian outlook of Silicon Valley is not going to be easy. The illusion of liberarianism is a powerful draw, and the proponents of the pitfalls of collective action have a simple narrative. In fact, certain venture capitalists would like a non-neutral cable-ized internet, because it presents artificial barriers that grant the well-capitalized a competitive advantage. And yet, the need for collective trusted action is obvious, and gradually, many people from many sectors are finding their way there.
Tim Wu, who helped coin the term ‘net neutrality’, is going to buy a locked down AT&T; powered iPhone, and is throwing in the towel (for now) on wireless freedom. I think he’s wrong, but Wu’s a very smart guy and an icon in this space.
In telecom circles, there’s been a little dust-up about Obama’s position on net neutrality, sparked by Carlyle Group telecom expert and former FCC Commissioner Bill Kennard’s statements.
“Where that has typically led us is to supporting tier pricing systems as long as they’re not discriminatory,” said Kennard, an outside communications policy adviser to Obama.
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Yer little sister, your nephew, daughter and of course a great good read for yourself. “Little Brother” by Cory Doctrow is just about the most timely exciting, involved, explainatory, descriptive and prescriptive book of our time. And a damn good read too. And yes the title is a play on Big Brother, except we are watching them. The power of the small. I feel OK with this diary just seeming like a plug because its so damn useful to progressives and freedom lovers, and because, and you must read why, its also available for free. http://craphound.com/littlebro… is a link to buying the book, and lots of other stuff. It’s free at that link too.
Sharing information is certainly one of the central needs and successes of our time. In fact I would hazard that without the inter-toobs, this Reformation would not be possible, no matter how bad or angry or depressed people got, the only relief allowed would be “The Change You Deserve” Anti-depressents, not what we created Change We Can Believe In. So a book, explaining all these issues, from net neutrality to being spied on, to untrusted authority it’s all here in a wonderful book, aimed at not just teenagers but the teenager in all of us.
A rollicking good romp, with teen heroes using smarts, tools, cameras and the internet to fight back. This is the kind of book that gets worn and wrinkled as its past from hand to hand to hand.
I’d recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I’ve read this year, and I’d want to get it into the hands of as many smart 13 year olds, male and female, as I can.
Because I think it’ll change lives. Because some kids, maybe just a few, won’t be the same after they’ve read it. Maybe they’ll change politically, maybe technologically. Maybe it’ll just be the first book they loved or that spoke to their inner geek. Maybe they’ll want to argue about it and disagree with it. Maybe they’ll want to open their computer and see what’s in there. I don’t know. It made me want to be 13 again right now and reading it for the first time, and then go out and make the world better or stranger or odder. It’s a wonderful, important book, in a way that renders its flaws pretty much meaningless.
Neil Gaiman, author of Sandman and Anansi Boys
A worthy younger sibling to Orwell’s 1984, Cory Doctorow’s LITTLE BROTHER is lively, precocious, and most importantly, a little scary.
Brian K Vaughn, author of Y: The Last Man
Get several copies of this book; read one, lend and give the rest. Now lets have more suggestions on great books for young people. Or any gift that gives kids more information, more tools, more confidence would be great.
A rousing tale of techno-geek rebellion, as necessary and dangerous as file sharing, free speech, and bottled water on a plane.
Obama’s campaign has found evidence that ‘viral campaign’ is hurting them in Kentucky, saying “he is a muslim.”
The medication for such viruses isn’t just lots of information, but lots of skills in finding the truth, how to do research, and how to detect self serving lies.
This article synthesizes several extant arguments that have appeared on Open Left into a new hypothesis. Despite the consternation that I, and others, have shown over Obama altering the progressive movement to become less partisan, less leftist, more compromising, and more conservative media friendly, Barack Obama is instead an excellent reflection of the current state of the progressive movement. Consider the following:
The Medium is the Movement. Over the past two weeks, I have argued that the expansion of the number of cultural producers and pluralizing of the public sphere that has been brought on by the network neutral Internet is itself the progressive movement. Rather than the progressive netroots being the movement, the progressive netroots is simply a subset of a much larger social reorganization of individual relationships with cultural institutions. That larger re-organization is the contemporary progressive movement, not the more narrowly focused progressive netroots.
Elite netroots demographics. Study after study after study has shown that progressive online political activists are relatively high income, extremely well-educated, intense media consumers, .and highly politically engaged. It is hard to characterize these demographics as anything but “elite,” although I think the notion of elites has gotten a bit of a bad rap in our political discourse lately. As John Stewart said, “not only do I want an elite president, I want someone who’s embarrassingly superior to me.”
Progressivism vs. PopulismIn an excellent essay on Sunday evening, Paul Rosenberg contrasted early twentieth century progressivism with early twentieth century populism, and connected it to Obama. For Paul, the Obama movement is more like the elite, deliberative, goo-goo progressives rather than the common, outraged populists:
(1) Obama’s primary orientation is that of a classic progressive. He seeks prolonged deliberation, and seeks to draw people into that process who are not ordinarily engaged. This is what he did as an organizer, and many people-perhaps including Obama himself-make the mistake of confusing his close contact with those he organized for somehow becoming one with them, rather than a prolonged attempt to make them more like himself. Of course, some of those he organized may have wanted to be more like him, but it is clearly not the case that most people do. Populism is a much more common orientation than progressivism.
(2) Obama’s antipathy to partisanship is strikingly parallel to the classic progressives’ antipathy to populist outrage. It is sharply at odds with the rationalist deliberative model that the classic progressive cherishes. Yet, partisan outrage may be exactly what’s called for at this point in time. It was certainly called for when Sinclair Lewis wrote The Jungle, for example. But the progressives were morally asleep at the time, and it took another two decades for the Great Depression to deliver the opening for the workers Lewis described to get a modicum of the justice they deserved.
(3) Obama’s remarks about “bitterness”-although touching on an important truth-legitimately did serve to crystalize his classic progressive attitudes that are experienced as “attempts at managerial purification [that] are paternalistic.” [From Balkin’s essay.] Paternalism, in turn is taken to mean that one’s concerns are not really taken seriously.
Yet, if the charge of paternalism was true-and I believe it was, however unintended-the second part, about concerns not being taken seriously, does not necessarily follow. Indeed, from the classic progressive’s point of view, managerial purification is necessary in order to get amorphous concerns translated into policy terms as a form of pre-processing before policy deliberation proper can begin. If one truly cares about people’s suffering, and wants to do something actually effective about it, then this is what one does, from the classic progressives’ point of view.
Of course, I am not saying that Obama is identical with the progressives of 100 years, but the parallels are strong, indeed. One thing that is significantly different is the relative numbers involved. A century ago, the middle class progressive leadership was numerically quite small compared to the working class masses they wished to educate and tame. Today’s middle class-economically imperiled though it may be-is dramatically larger, even moreso as a percentage of the electorate.
It is important to remember that while the activist component of Obama’s campaign is impressive in numbers, with over 1.5 million donors and activists, and while it has done an impressive job of increasing voter turnout in Democratic primaries, it is still, ultimately, dominated by a new “mass elite.” That is, barely more than 1% 2.5% of Kerry voters have donated to Obama, and voter turnout in most primary states is still below 50%. While the numbers of highly engaged people have vastly increased over the past decade, the highly engaged still represent a type of “upper middle class,” elite, minority of the overall population.” The ranks of that elite are swelling, but it still isn’t a mass, populist movement (yet).
Much the same can be said about the rapid expansion of cultural producers and the reorganization of the public sphere that has taken place as a result of the net-neutral Internet. While tens of millions of people have had their daily relationship with dominant cultural institutions altered by the net neutral Internet, at this stage in the development of the movement, most Americans, and certainly most people in the world, have not. Right now, it is more like the early twentieth century progressives, rather than the late nineteenth-century populists. The activist portion of the movement, while growing, is still dominated by people who fall into elite demographic categories. Those categories, partly due to the expansion of the middle class and the network-neutral Internet, just have a lot more people than they did at any point in the past.
Synthesis: Obama reflects the contemporary state of the progressive movement. The contemporary progressive movement is steadily swelling its ranks, and continues to reorganize the relationships more and more individuals with dominant cultural institutions. However, at this point in time, the movement still only impacts what can be understood as more “elite” demographics, such as the highly educated, those with higher incomes, and those already highly engaged in both media consumption and political activism. Obama’s anti-partisan message appeals to this grow not despite the implied elitism of the message, but rather because of the elitism of the message. His message reflects the more “elite” concerns of the movement, rather than changing those concerns.
More in the extended entry.
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I got a CAT scan this morning, a very breezy painless process. Jaw is not feeling so good, but my eyes are fine. Obama’s about to lose West Virginia by a substantial margin, possibly thirty or forty points. That’ll be embarrassing and scary for Democrats, but there we go.
Here’s what I’m reading.
Mark Begich is running for Senate against Ted Stevens, and he’s a strong proponent of net neutrality. Ted Stevens was the chair of the Senate commerce committee, and
The GOP is adopting a ‘change’ narrative, with the slogan ‘the change you deserve’. They ripped that off from an antidepressant.
Media Matters has a study out listing the 4500 quotes from Pentagon propaganda pundits.
The MS-01 race is today. Swingstateproject will be live-blogging it. It’s an R+10 district, with huge sums from both parties flowing in, so it’s a tell as to the larger environment.
The death toll in China is at 18,000. It’s a tragedy, and while we don’t cover that kind of thing on OpenLeft, it’s worth noting.
We shouldn’t make the mistake of investing new media with a teleological purpose. We still don’t know how mass produced books have altered the brain, though we know they ended the Medieval Church’s restrictions on Bible reading. We know history, but we know no ends.
This is a good point, since technology itself should be understood as value-neutral, and only the means to which technological advancement are utilized have cultural value. Even the Internet could be used in any number of ways, not all of which are progressive. For example, control over the Internet could be placed almost entirely in the hands of a few extant institutions with great power, such as the military, the government or large corporations. If that were the case, then the technology would serve the ends of those institutions, rather than take on a more progressive function.
This is why I think it is important to emphasize that the Internet, in and of itself, is not the progressive movement, but rather that only the current incarnation of the Internet–that is, a network neutral Internet–can be understood as the progressive movement. This is because it is only a network-neutral Internet that vastly reduces the cost of information, pluralizes the public sphere, and greatly expands the number of cultural producers. Those aspects of the current incarnation of the Internet are indeed progressive, but they are not inherent to the Internet itself. The Internet does not naturally decrease the cost of information for the public at large and allow the number of cultural producers to expand by several orders of magnitude. Rather, it only accomplishes those ends because powerful, extant institutions are not granted privileged space to control the Internet. In other words, we are operating in a value-positive Internet, and using that type of Internet to achieve progressive ends.
I have long argued that conservatism, as an ideology, stands for little else except the defense of powerful, privileged, status quo institutions. Within that framework, by destabilizing the long-term viability of privileged institutions of cultural production, the network-neutral Internet is inherently progressive. However, that is not a case of applying a teleological purpose to a new technology, because the net neutrality is a value-laden alteration of Internet technology. By not privileging any given network on the Internet, the new media has a built-in democratic component.
I should also note that equating the progressive movement with the cultural and informational democratizing effects of the network neutral Internet does not prevent the emergence of other progressive movements either now or in the near future. For example, the radical localism proposed in Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy would have a similar impact on our daily, individual relationship with cultural, economic, and governmental institutions. However, at this point, by far the most development and pronounced progressive movement is indeed the network neutral Internet. Other possibilities are out there, but for now this is where the progressive movement is headed.
I feel OK with this diary just seeming like a plug because its so damn useful to progressives and freedom lovers, and because, and you must read why, its also available for free. 
