Things that ring in the night.

If there is any part of "our freedoms" that must be defended more than the right to risk irreparable disaster for profit, the right to sell fraudulent securities, bogus debt reduction plans and to buy election results, it's the right to harass people at all hours of the day and night in their homes, in their cars and at work in the process of fleecing them.

Yes, there are laws regulating telemarketing: no call lists, restrictions on times called, restrictions on robocalls that tie up the line until they're through telling you how evil Nancy Pelosi is or how they can get you out of debt by lending you more money at 400% interest. These laws are scrupulously ignored and lawbreakers are carefully protected by the phone companies who in turn are allowed to buy the privilege of ignoring not only the law, but common decency. Virtually all these calls, including the call that woke me at 3:33 this morning are untraceable. "Hell-O - are you late in your mortgage payments???" I was ready to kill someone, but thanks to an FCC that is owned by the telecommunications industry, I'm not allowed to do what I would be allowed to do if someone in a black ski mask showed up in my bedroom at the same hour. That I don't have a mortgage and am not in debt adds a certain edge to the anger. That I only got 4 hours of sleep hasn't allowed it to dissipate.

I may have to give up my land line. Even in a non-election year, I average about 8 telemarketing calls every day, usually most frequent at 8 O'clock AM, again around dinner time with a late peak at 9 to 10 PM. It rings when I'm in the shower, in the pool, up on a ladder trimming trees or under my car changing the oil. Of course it's nearly twice as bad this year.

My number is registered on that most pathetic of places, the Federal no-call list. I wonder why I bothered to register it. So is my cell phone and yet every loan shark and financial con man sends me text messages and calls me at the most inopportune times, so I have to remain unreachable, which largely defeats the purpose of owning one. Yes, this continues when one is overseas and for some reason, candidates all over the country continue to call me even when I demand to be removed.

Of course, I'm just a crank with no knowledge of how evil Liberals are and no proof that the ever further to the right corporate shills still calling themselves Republicans aren't the cause of our woes. After all, it's just freedom I'm objecting to and the will of the proletariat is that the will of the corporations be the law -- and isn't it typical of loser liberals like me to promote such Communo/Fascist ideas like a right to be left alone by scam hawkers and sleazemongers and political flim flam artists who have a far greater right to use a service I pay for than I do.

Net Neutrality and you

If you're reading this, you most likely have an interest in the future of the Internet and concern with the ownership thereof. Most of us assume it belongs to us, the way we once assumed the ' air waves' belonged to us -- just like the air itself. The electromagnetic spectrum now largely belongs to those who make a profit from it and the Internet may well follow suit. The phone and cable companies would certainly like to regulate what you may or may not get on line and how fast you get it as well as how much you'll have to pay.

What's at stake for them is the ability to sell you "premium" services over dedicated networks and to be able to "prioritize" or discriminate between traffic that takes up bandwidth and traffic they can make a buck on. Of course it's much more complex than this, but the outcome of FCC deliberations on Net Neutrality may very well have a huge effect on the flow of information and our assumption that everyone has a right to hear and be heard without interference; without corporate censorship.

Of course the ability of the FCC to do anything at all is in question following recent court decisions that seem to be part of the crusade against regulating anything and everything and without such an agency to provide a system of rules to protect a media that's fast replacing print and broadcast as our portal to the world, what you know, what you are able to know may well be determined by what makes the most money or most suits the interests of service providers. Indeed we've already traveled quite a distance down that path.

The FCC is now open to public comment. You can be sure that Verizon and Google, inter alia are speaking very loudly and carrying a very big stick so if there's going to be any slim chance for the public to weigh in on Net Neutrality, you chance to be heard is now.

Internet Freedom Act and Net Neutrality

No, no, no. The Internet Freedom Act isn't about freedom for you as an internet user and you should know by now that when a Republican uses the word Freedom it's about corporate control over your options. John McCain's "freedom act" appears now, after we've just begun to recover from eight years of the Bush FCC acting as a wholly owned subsidiary of big communications corporations; fudging the science and ignoring its own rules with impunity. Under Michael Powell and Kevin Martin, the Commission has stifled, hidden and falsified studies concerning the adverse effects on the public airwaves and even disaster relief services, of using power lines as a conductor for broadband internet and has made censorship of "indecency" a prime directive. It's high time they were prevented from protecting the public interest rather than the power of the telecommunications industry and the religious right.

If McCain's legislation is passed, the Internet Service Providers will have the power to limit your web bandwidth and mine and give preference to - you guessed it - the people they like, the people they own and the people who say what they want said. Have a blog that criticizes Comcast? Back to the days of 300 baud for you old chap! Fox News can blaze along at any speed they like with all the streaming and screaming video and Glennbeckery they can produce and the FCC won't be able to represent you. The freedom of giant corporations and puritanical moralists to censor you -- that's the kind of freedom John McCain thinks is worth fighting for!

Another loss for the home team

Even though their last attempt in 2003 was shot down by a Federal Appeals Court, the GOP controlled FCC under Kevin Martin has decided, despite public and congressional disapproval that we need less diversity in the media and as of yesterday has made it far easier for the handful of heavily Republican near monopolies that own most of the newspapers, TV and radio stations in the US to move toward unobstructed media consolidation in all markets. In the cases where such cross ownership isn't allowed by the rules, waivers will be granted and if there is no preference for "conservative" viewpoints, I will be amazed.

There's still hope that a wrench can be thrown into the machine once more and another handover of public property to the corporate barons prevented, but we have to let our senators know and we have to do it now. 25 of them have already pledged to overturn this outrageous ruling but we need more - unless of course you really want a country where all you can read and hear is Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh and lyin' Bill O'Reilly.

Shame on the air

George Carlin's 7 prohibited words and Janet Jacksons breasts may elicit huge fines from the FCC, but hate, racism and bigotry thrive and proliferate on the radio and neither the handful of corporations that decide what we will know about nor the FCC seem to have any interest in doing a damned thing about it. Christian Family Values seem to have more to do with human bodies and human waste than with actual evil, such as hatred or bigotry or calls to violence based upon them.

I don't think you'll be hearing about any massive fines for the following, nor any action by the small group of corporations who pay Bob Newman or Pat Robertson or Neal Boortz or James Edwards. Tune in to this:

"I want every Muslim immigrant to America. . . to be required by law to wear a GPS tracking bracelet at all times" -- Bob Newman, from the Gunny Bob Show, May 8th 2007 on Denver's Newsradio 850 KOA.

"Give 'em all a little nuclear waste and let 'em take it on down to Mexico. . . Tell 'em it's a tortilla warmer." -- Neal Boortz, on the Neal Boortz show, June 21st, 2007, Cox Radio Syndication.

" Islam is not a religion. It's a worldwide political movement meant [sic] on domination of the world." -- Pat Robertson, June 12th on Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club"

Back on May17th, James Edwards, host of "The Political Cesspool" told us the Jim Crow, pre-civil rights era was

"Back when America had a strong moral compass. You had cultural and racial integrity in those days. . . What's been taken from us, we can take back."

Edwards is an open admirer of former Klan leader and neo-Nazi David Duke who often appears on the show. It's sponsors include the CCC, or Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group and The Institute for Historical Review which produces fake history concerning the WW II extermination of Jews and Gypsies. His show appears on WRLM in Memphis which bills itself as a "Christian news" station.

Cox owns 80 AM and FM stations and tells prospective employees that high ethical standards are required. Evidently, the paleoconservative political action group known as the FCC agrees.

Murdoch's Ministry of Information

What if one company owned the daily newspapers, the weekly “alternative” newspaper, the city magazine, suburban publications, the eight largest radio stations, the dominant broadcast and cable television stations, popular internet news and calendar sites, billboards and concert halls in your city -- in your country, asks John Nichols, blogger at The Nation? Is there anyone but Rupert Murdoch who thinks the public interest is served or rational democracy enabled by allowing such a thing to happen?

Yes, there is; he's FCC Chairman and Smirkmeister Kevin Martin, a product of an administration that would like to hand everything from the airwaves to the air itself over to the highest bidder, if not the highest contributor. The New York times tells us the plan is for sweeping deregulation that would finally put to rest the idea that an information monopoly is a bad thing and that the broadcast spectrum is a natural resource, access to which requires an obligation for public service. Let the biggest dog have the only bark in town as long as they support the Republican Corporatocracy!

There seem to be no plans for the customary public hearings and we may be handed the dismemberment of yet another important public protection by December of this year. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is already the largest media empire in the world. It's only the beginning.

Under the Bush administration, the function of the venerable agency has become to apportion public resources amongst media moguls without any regard for public interest. They have, as a matter of policy, routinely refused to protect licensed spectrum users against encroachments from large corporations and has been accused by the GAO of collaborating with corporate lobbyists; using secret meetings to pass them the information they need to avoid congressional actions and others have accused them not only of stifling entrepreneurship but of stifling minority ownership of radio broadcast licenses.

The idea of a free and open internet where bloggers can at least offer opposing viewpoints and cover items deemed unworthy by Murdoch or Clear Channel may soon die a similar death. Can anything resembling democracy fare any better?