Some Difference! 11/17

Trey Smith

6 The FCC should not and must not regulate telecoms to ensure that poor and rural communities have access to internet, or to guarantee network neutrality. Republicans have always been in favor of digital redlining, against network neutrality. Barack Obama claimed on the campaign trail he'd take a back seat to nobody in guaranteeing network neutrality. But he appointed as FCC chair a man who helped write the infamous Telecommunications Act of 1995, which gave away the government-built internet backbone to a handful of immensely powerful telecoms like AT&T and Comcast, and flatly reversed himself on network neutrality. The Department of Justice was forced to stop the ATT-T-Mobile merger by a storm of public outrage, but approved the Comcast-NBC deal.
~ from Closer Than You Think: Top 15 Things Romney and Obama Agree On by Bruce A. Dixon ~

For years, Democrats and Republicans have been in agreement that the public airwaves aren't so public. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have been cheerleaders for allowing communications corporations to hold consumers and citizens hostage.

Even worse, while most other western industrialized nations are working to make the internet available to most or all of their residents, the US is one of the biggest foot draggers on this issue. We have the capability to get this done in a short amount of time, but the bipartisan political will is lacking.