Save Net Neutrality: In America it’s Groundhog Day every day.

_News reports are circulating that the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) plans to introduce new rules to end net neutrality.   According to the New York Times, “the principle that all Internet content should be treated equally as it flows through cables and pipes to consumers looks all but dead.”

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Note by the Editor: Very often we feel at The Greanville Post that we’re sending our articles into a vacuum, a nothingness, for there is little response and scant visible action. The American public, including supposedly many progressives who read blogs like this, seem perfectly happy to sit on their butts while the world falls apart. Passivity rules. Now, many of the crimes and ills that torment the world today have been known and announced from sites such as ours for years if not decades. The corporate attack on the planet’s environment and its helpless creatures is well documented.

The despicable corruption of the US government, now literally in the pockets of a criminal plutocracy, which has permitted the evisceration of the working class and the rise of profound inequality, is also well documented. The lies of the mainstream media —especially in their constant promotion of war and support for an appallingly hypocritical and corrupt status quo—continue unabated, while there is again no visible reaction from the mass public, except for commentary on social media which seldom attains effective national levels—or arrives way too late to change the course of history. Now, even the Internet, the last remaining and most wondrous tool created to facilitate human communication, and the best hope for progressives to make their voices heard, is being threatened by the same crooks and criminals, the enemies of humankind in general, while said progressives—however they may define themselves—are again showing few signs they have learned any lessons. Where is the mobilization to stop this outrage? Where is the drive to unite and speak with a single powerful voice? So I must ask: FOR ONCE, GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND CONTACT YOUR crook in the US Congress and let him/her hear in no uncertain terms (don’t beg!) what you think about this. Self preservation is just about the only lever left, a weakened one at that, in what passes for representative democracy in America. Use it while you can. Or devise other means of resistance.

The mainstream liberals, especially the numerous Obamabots, are not doing much and will not do much to help this situation. So, if you can stomach it, visit their sites and sound the alarm. It’s fine if you never gave a dime to support this or other progressive sites. Leftist sites are normally financial orphans in America. They live hand to mouth, perennially begging for a few dollars. We refuse to do that, and it is rare for us to ask for help; we simply pay whatever costs are incurred in running these sites out of our own pockets, and, mind you, no one associated with this site (and daresay similar sites) is well off. Not even remotely. But we frankly don’t care. We’ll do what we need to do anyway. But that’s our problem. The important thing now is that you don’t let the bastards take away the only resource you have left to defend your interests and viewpoints. For starters, get in touch with the folks at Freepress and see if any coordination is possible, even at this late hour. If you don’t try to reach the ears of the crooks in Congress about this matter you’ll have only yourself to blame later. —Patrice Greanville

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The FCC actions come as a result of a critical federal court decision,Verizon v. FCC, decided earlier this year.  The DC circuit court found that the Open Internet rules were inappropriate established by a Bush-era FCC decision shifting it’s classification from the old “common carrier” model used for POTS (plain-old-telephone-service) to an “information service” not subject to the Communications Act.

The FCC’s proposed new rules will be formally voted on May 15^th.  Under the rules, the FCC will permit the leading ISPs to introduce a new priority pricing mechanism creating, in effect, a two-tier online distribution network.  “Broadband providers would be required to offer a baseline level of service to their subscribers, along with the ability to enter into individual negotiations with content providers,” the FCC announced. “In all instances, broadband providers would need to act in a commercially reasonable manner subject to review on a case-by-case basis.”  What is “a commercially reasonable manner”?

These new rules shift the Internet from an open system where all data travels at the same rate to a pay-to-play system favoring preferential treatment for the giant content providers like Netflix or Google’s YouTube.  Apparently, the new rules will continue to prohibit blocking or discriminating against online content.  Had the new rules been adopted a decade ago, its anyone’s guess whether Netflix or YouTube would be viable companies today.

The FCC’s likely actions to end net neutrality is a result of a systemic campaign to privatization of the Internet and further the monopolistic efforts of the giant telecom and media companies.  Over this period, both Republican (e.g., Michael Powell) and Democratic (e.g., Julius Genachowski) commissioners of the FCC have been water-carriers for corporate interests; the one major exception was former commissioner Michael Copps.

Tom Wheeler’s appointment as FCC chairman in November 2013 is emblematic of this process.  He served as head of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) from 1979 and 1984; Bush-era chairman, Powell, now heads the trade group. Wheeler previously ran the Cellular Telecom and Internet Association (CTIA) from 1992 through 2004.  Before his current appointment, he was managing director at Core Capital Partners, a venture-capital firm, and was a longtime Obama fundraiser.

Over the last decade-plus, there’s been an increasingly close relationship between the FCC and its corporate clients – to the detriment of the public. This was most graphically displayed in 2011 when Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker, shortly following her approval of Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal, took a well-paying position with the cable giant.

The FCC’s revolving door is evident in the career paths of the three most recent chairmen. Kevin Martin, a Bush-II appointee, is now with Patton Boggs, a leading Washington, DC, law firm and lobbyist. Powell, Gen. Powell’s son who now heads the NCTA; and William Kennard, also appointed by Clinton, previously an executive with the banking firm, Carlyle Group, now serves as the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union.  And Obama’s former chairman, Genachowski?; he’s now with the Carlyle Group.

“The FCC is inviting ISPs to pick winners and losers online,” Michael Weinberg, vice president at Public Knowledge, a Washington-based consumer-advocacy group, said in a statement. “This is not Net neutrality. This standard allows ISPs to impose a new price of entry for innovation on the Internet.”

The “simple” solution to the likely end to net neutrality is to reclassify the Internet as a common carrier service.  But “simple” is never simple, especially for the Obama administration where rhetoric has replaced reality as the mark of its “progressive” commitments.  While FCC Chairman Wheeler and the White House will moan and groan the fate of net neutrality, they will do little to really address the underlying problem.  The end of net neutrality is at hand.

David Rosen can be reached at drosennyc@verizon.net.