These are skilled people with diverse interests and even more diverse points of view. Three are college professors. Also writing for S&R have been or are an Hispanic activist from Texas; a foreign affairs writer who specializes in nuclear deproliferation issues and civilian casualties resulting from armed conflict; a gay staff cartoonist; a management consultant specializing in organizational behavior whose clients include 20 percent of the Fortune 500; an ex-pat South African economist; three experts in popular culture; a former director of the Berkeley Stage Company and statistical demographer for the U.S. Census Bureau; a professional stage actor; two stay-at-moms; a photographer; and occasional guest columnists.

However, we all share one trait: We are volunteers. We don’t get paid. We have other lives, other responsibilities, other people dependent on us to make a living. As business models go, ours sucks. Modest ad income and passing the hat means S&R remains a labor of love. But can love be a sustaining force for the online medium in the absence of profit?

In the Beginning of Blogging, it was all so exciting. Thrilling, even. Putting up a post, watching the stats, seeing who read your work, where they were — and how many read your stuff. Generate those hits. Yeah. That was heady stuff.

Is it still?

Most individual and group blogs are dependent on volunteers. It’s rare that a Huffington Post can raise $37 million to sustain the enterprise. (Of course, HuffPo has “volunteers” too, doesn’t it?)

The print newspaper industry continues to collapse in terms of revenue, profitability, and numbers of paid, professional journalists. So the dominant use of volunteers to inaugurate and maintain sites featuring commentary and/or advocacy journalism becomes an increasingly important public-interest issue.

Most S&R writers are ideologically progressive but rarely hew to party lines. As the S&R mission statement says:

Scholars & Rogues is a diverse band of thinkers, social analysts, activists, grousers, jesters, and troublemakers. We’re different in many ways, but we share a general belief in progress, a conviction that smarter is better, and a passionate distaste for convention.

That statement mirrors the intent of many capable bloggers. Many (but perhaps not most) bloggers seek to simply make things better. We have particular issues or problems that occupy our blogging attention. We are exceedingly dependent, though, on the research of others (those paid professional journalists whose stories we link to) to support points made in our posts.

But those posts, which leaven “objective” journalism with (usually lucid) commentary, add substance to debates of public interest. Yet the majority of bloggers are not paid for their work. What will become of community blogs such as S&R as the corps of volunteers 1) lose interest, 2) lose access to reliable, verifiable information produced by journalists, 3) lose equal access to the Web as politicians favor corporate control of the Internet or 4) just need to spend more time at the day job in a bad economy to make ends meet?

Note that newspapers, in the early days of online news Web sites, had links where volunteers could post community news. Now, that didn’t work out so well, did it? Let’s hope community blogs fare better.

Volunteerism is the principle means of support for community blogs such as S&R. Many such blogs, blogs populated by smart, capable people (see our blogroll), no doubt face the same pressure the volunteers at S&R do: Keep pumpin’ out the posts. Keep the conversation going. Keep the debate fresh and focused. But it’s difficult, as a volunteer, to pump out as many posts as I’d like. (I do like to get eight hours’ sleep each night.)

At some point, as B.B. King would sing, “The thrill is gone.” I hope most of us aren’t there yet, but it’s increasingly a problem faced by those bloggers who believe in candid, civil, and common-sense conversations in the public sphere — yet have family and job responsibilities elsewhere.

Park for a minute and tell us something. After you’re elected president, what are you gonna do with those buffoons running the Minerals Management Service that collects each year oil and gas royalties of $10 billion from oil companies? The Interior Department’s inspector general says top officials there have been involved in “financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.”

And while you’re at it, what about Nancy Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission? You plan to let her keep on defending “trips she took that were paid for by the industries that her agency regulates“? You gonna let her keep on telling Congress that her agency does not need a larger budget to police the the industries that produce the nation’s consumer goods?

You know, toxic goods like “the 518,028 tubes of toothpaste [falsely labeled as Colgate] worth an estimated $730,419 that were shipped into the country and distributed to bargain retail stores in several states last year”? Or the 21 million toys recalled because of excessive levels of lead paint?

And what are you gonna do about flip-flopper Stephen L. Johnson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency who says “yes” until the White House, critics say, tells him to say “no”? Mr. Johnson initially told California it could limit tailpipe emissions from motor vehicles at higher-than-federal standards — but, critics say, reversed himself after a nudge from the Bush administration. Yes, he’s the guy who heads an agency that during the Bush administration once produced an annual federal report on air pollution with no section on global warming.

Yes, he was the guy in charge when the EPA — to save industry about $6 million in paperwork costs — instituted a “newly revised Toxics Release Inventory rule [that] will also make it possible for hundreds of large corporations to avoid reporting specific amounts of toxic chemicals they release into the air, land, or water, environmentalists warn.” [emphasis added]

And while you’re at it, do you plan to appoint someone as a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission just ’cause he was a special assistant to the president, or a member of your transition team, or the general counsel to your campaign? You know, like President Bush did for current chair Kevin J. Martin?

You remember Mr. Martin, don’t you, the guy who faced “a congressional inquiry into the FCC’s procedures and allegations of flawed research studies, suppressing data, ignoring public input and holding hearings with minimal notice”? Yes, that guy, the one who told Congress that there’s no need to make rules to prevent an Internet service provider, like, say, Comcast, from creating “a ‘fast lane‘ for certain Internet content and applications” that would, in effect, create favored tiers of access for some commercial users over others.

And what are you gonna do about Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who ducked any responsibility for the scandal rattling the $85 billion student loan industry with a bland statement that “We monitor these programs vigorously” and that the system was “crying out for reform”? And what about her work with No Child Left Behind, the 2001 law requiring schools to track the progress of students in math and English? Given that the government never fully provided the states with funding to appropriately enact the law, has it worked? How hard did she actually push for full funding? Should she stay? Go?

And there are so many others. Do you plan to examine the performance of the head honchoes in the Securities and Exchange Commission? Where were the regulators when financial institutions were tossing out subprime loans like candy? Did the SEC act with sufficient alacrity “to examine the role of the rating agencies in lending practices by the mortgage industry”?

You plan to retain Christopher Cox as chairman of an agency that’s supposed to regulate industry? Do you believe him when he says he’s “actively on the lookout for possible securities fraud?” You know, of course, that as a congressman he pushed a bill that would restrict investors’ ability to sue industry? And that as chair, critics fear he’s still pushing to protect industry, not regulate it? Is that the kind of SEC you want?

What about those fine folks at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, led by John Dugan? His bio says Mr. Dugan is the “administrator of national banks and chief officer of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC supervises about 1,700 federally chartered commercial banks and about 50 federal branches and agencies of foreign banks in the United States, comprising nearly two-thirds of the assets of the commercial banking system.” Hmmm. Big banks are tumbling fast and furious. You gonna keep him?

What about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? It will become more on the spot as the nuclear power industry gears up to do its self-promoted part in ending our reliance on foreign energy sources. What about those agencies with lots of words in their names that deal with transportation safety in the air, on land and over the water? ‘Cause you know, of course, that the nation’s infrastructure is screwed up beyond belief. Who’s gonna fix it for you? And are you gonna keep on selling off interstate highways and other infrastructures to private investors instead of refurbishing them?

And was creating the Department of Homeland Security really a good idea? Who’s gonna untangle that debacle? And, sheesh, who are you gonna name to run FEMA?

C’mon, Barack. ‘Fess up, John. You are fully aware that as president you determine through your constitutional appointment authority how your administration functions through the roughly 2,000 people you name to administer federal departments and agencies.

So back off those lame, endlessly repetitive stump speeches. If you continue to claim the federal government is a) inefficient, b) too large), c) too small, d) ineffective or e) all of the above, talk turkey. Name names. Tell voters precisely the credentials and qualifications you’ll be checking off on folks who apply to work in your administration.

You’ve been lucky so far. The big-time media “analysts” and “commentators” and “contributers” and “anchors” have let you off the hook. You get to divert our attention from the core of governmental chaos by talking only about gay marriage (good? bad?), Iraq (in? out?), Supreme Court appointments (no litmus test?), elitism (him, not me!), education, (more teachers now, please), crime (more police now, please), illegal immigration (it’s really bad, of course!). You get to avoid most of what really counts.

So give us the real red meat. Who’s really gonna run the government? Tell us.

And we know you’re not going to be personally sifting through a gazillion résumés to fill thousands of government posts. So who’s gonna do that?

Your “transition team,” of course. Why don’t you tell us now instead of after the election whom you’ll appoint to that team? The makeup of your transition team will tell us much about the qualifications you’ll be looking for in your administrative appointments.

But, of course, you won’t talk about this. Presidential candidates rarely do. And our wonderful media, far more interested in personalities, horse races and conflict (because conflict is what really sells papers and pumps up TV ratings), will harrumph, harrumph mightily and ask more stupid questions that you pretend to be offended by.

You’ve really got it easy, don’t you?

Why would Cicconi make such claims? As Ars Technica astutely notes, AT&T has every interest to push bandwith-throttling tactics like those used by Comcast in its blocking of BitTorrent, because like Comcast, AT&T’s supposed high-speed Internet offering relies upon existing network connections, rather than building true fiber-optic cable to the home as Verizon is doing with FiOS–and is prey to the same bandwith restrictions and infrastructure problems as a result, when it’s not literally blowing up in people’s faces.

What Verizon gets–and what AT&T, Comcast, and much of the cable/telecom duopolies fail to understand–is that only with heavy infrastructure investment and network buildouts will we be able to bring real high-speed broadband to the country. Companies that place short-term profits over long-term gains are constantly looking to squeeze every last customer dollar out of existing networks that they can before putting up the money to build out new connections. As a result, “network management”–what you and I call throttling or cutting customers off–is becoming more and more commonplace.

P2P service Vuze has taken the debate a step further, by developing a user plugin that enables them to measure traffic-shaping efforts and analyze the data. Vuze recently published their first report detailing their initial findings, and the conclusions are interesting indeed–Vuze claims that Comcast’s traffic-shaping efforts are widespread, and that they’re hardly the sole offenders.

Of course, it’s important to take Vuze’s findings with a few shakerfuls of salt–they are a P2P service, after all, so it’s in their interests to counteract any network-controlling techniques that would hinder their business. And who’s to say whether or not the app is designed to give back exactly the kind of data they want to publicize? Still, even with the necessary skepticism attached, the central question remains–what if they’re right?

And it’s not just happening to Internet traffic as well. Today a report came out detailing how Comcast, apparently unsatisfied with their reputation as the boogiemen of net neutrality, are compressing high-definition television signals into the bandwith of analog signals, rather than investing in infrastructure upgrades to deliver real HD images to the viewer. The result:

“It kind of looked like they took the standard definition and just blew it up,” said Swanson, a 33-year-old graphic designer and videographer who subscribes to Comcast Corp.’s TV service. “I couldn’t really tell if what I was seeing was really better than what I saw on regular television.”

This sums up so much of how American communications conglomerates have swindled the public over the years by feeding us crappy second-rate service that we pay through the nose for, because there are often no other options for service in our residential area. And don’t think Verizon is a prize just because they get the message about true fiber-to-the-home buildouts. This is the same company that deliberately redirects Internet searches to its own home pages, blocked text messages from NARAL, and (lest we forget) aided and abetted the NSA in spying on American citizens illegally. Wow, that’s real competition there.

This week the Senate Commerce Committee is holding a hearing on no less than the future of the Internet itself, and net neutrality supporter Senator John Kerry has taken the opportunity to solicit feedback from citizens concerned about the unchecked power of corporations to subtly warp and twist Internet access to suit their purposes–or simply to save themselves a few bucks while we fall further and further behind in real broadband development. Don’t forget that many of those bucks will go to buying off Senators and Congressmen to ensure that their agendas are fulfilled on Capitol Hill. If you don’t believe me, ask John “Straight Talk” McCain–his infamous “friend” Vicki Iseman was a hard-charging telecommunications lobbyist:

Iseman, 40, who joined the Arlington-based firm of Alcalde & Fay as a secretary and rose to partner within a few years, often touted her access to the chairman of the Senate commerce committee as she worked on behalf of clients such as Cablevision, EchoStar and Tribune Broadcasting, according to several other lobbyists who spoke on the condition of anonymity…In the years that McCain chaired the commerce committee, Iseman lobbied for Lowell W. “Bud” Paxson, the head of what used to be Paxson Communications, now Ion Media Networks, and was involved in a successful lobbying campaign to persuade McCain and other members of Congress to send letters to the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Paxson.

We’re in the middle of a shadow war over control of the Internet, and the people who matter the most–you and I–need to make our voices heard over the clamor of lobbyists, paid flacks, and pundits. The Internet is a public good that was built with your tax dollars. We need to employ basic principles to build real networks. If we don’t, our Internet future will be compressed, distorted, and not quite like the real thing–too much noise, too little signal, and too much cost for too little benefit.

We can do better than that. We must do better than that.

The band’s success is a testament to an open Internet. OK Go was propelled to national fame via the popularity of their YouTube videos. One, a treadmill dance along to the song “Here It Goes Again,” has been viewed more than 31 million times.

“If people wonder whether the music industry will benefit from Net Neutrality they can look no further than us,” said OK Go’s lead singer and guitarist Damian Kulash in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

“There really is some consensus here that Net Neutrality is good for music and good for musicians… I’m here to ask you today to preserve Net Neutrality and the openness of the Internet. I believe it’s critical to the future of music.”

These days, when it seems like the deck is as thoroughly stacked against legitimate artists as it has ever been, it’s a little scary to imagine what happens if we take away one of the few tools left to bands trying to promote themselves.

So yeah, let your Congressweasel hear your voice….

Meanwhile, here’s a taste of what you’ll never taste again if the telcos kill NetNeut.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Comcast’s spokespersons admitted it paid people to do the same for a hearing on the company’s actions regarding its interference with peer-to-peer file-sharing services such as BitTorrent. The placeholders not only held spots in line, but also crowded into the hearing itself, preventing more than 100 attendees — many of whom had come to speak against Comcast — from getting inside.

This is, quite simply put, one of the lowest things I’ve ever seen. Was Comcast so unsure of its position that it had to stack the deck by paying homeless guys and gofers to fill up seats and cheer on command?

SaveTheInternet.com has a video up of the whole sordid affair:

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s a very old-school action from what is absolutely an old-school company. Comcast and those like them are brick-and-mortar monopolists who are trying to take control of the Internet for their own profit. How can you expect them to play fair and freely with content that passes through their “pipes,” when they are willing to cheat at something as elemental as the right of public assembly and discourse?

I’m sure Sam will point out how utterly stupid Comcast was to try a tactic like this, not realizing they’d get caught–as if they couldn’t conceive their opposition would have access to resources that could dig this story up and get it on the front pages, where it belongs. Again, a very old-school attitude from an old-school company.

Companies like Comcast need to learn and be reminded in no uncertain terms that the Internet does not belong to them. It’s a public utility, built with tax dollars for the public good, and to establish free flow of communication among the public. If we don’t hold them accountable, the Internet of the future will operate very much like Comcast did at this FCC hearing–the people who pay will get the best seats in the house.

Of course, the company hasn’t actually come out and said it so plainly, any more than they’ll admit they cancel customer accounts for hitting undisclosed bandwith caps. Instead, as Mike Masnick notes, they’re using “weasel language” that implies their intent without being so precise as to be caught.

Let’s compare and contrast. From Comcast’s terms of service, Section III, “Network Management And Consumption:”

How does Comcast manage its network?

Comcast uses various tools and techniques to manage its network, deliver the Service, and ensure compliance with this Policy and the Subscriber Agreement. These tools and techniques are dynamic, like the network and its usage, and can and do change frequently. For example, these network management activities may include (i) identifying spam and preventing its delivery to customer e-mail accounts, (ii) detecting malicious Internet traffic and preventing the distribution of viruses or other harmful code or content, (iii) temporarily delaying peer-to-peer sessions (or sessions using other applications or protocols) during periods of high network congestion, (iv) limiting the number of peer-to-peer sessions during periods of high network congestion, and (v) using other tools and techniques that Comcast may be required to implement in order to meet its goal of delivering the best possible broadband Internet experience to all of its customers.

From Comcast’s selection of high-speed Internet packages:

Get on the fast track…fast! With Comcast High-Speed Internet, you’ll enjoy the most amazing online experience. Powered by Comcast’s advanced fiber-optic network, you’ll love the thrill of blazing-fast speeds. Speeds way faster than DSL from the phone company! * And with Comcast’s innovative PowerBoost® technology, activities like downloading videos, movies, music and games or uploading photos go even faster.

One of these things is not like the others.
For Comcast to come out and say that their network may be something less than “blazing fast” is the kiss of marketing death, but at the same time, in the wake of their impending FCC investigation, they have to give themselves at least some legalistic CYA to ensure they can’t be held accountable by angry customers, consumer activists, or Capitol Hill. Thus this song-and-dance. As Andy Patrizio and Masnick have noted, the “reasonable network management” phrase is the same language used by the FCC itself, a clear signal that the company is trying to appease Kevin Martin in his never-ending war on cable.

I recommend reading Free Press’ Marvin Ammori’s awesome analysis of this seemingly innocuous change, in which he deconstructs their legalese down to the essence–that they are too cheap to build out a more advanced network to handle the demands their customer base is placing on it (which happens when you’re an essential monopoly in many regions), so they’re instead throttling their customers’ Internet access and calling that “reasonable network management.”

Enjoy that blazing-fast 3mbps speed!

On this issue, as with many others (such as their opposition to net neutrality), the two giants of the telecom industry have been largely buddy-buddy. Both of them stand to lose millions in damages from lawsuits brought against them for their actions, before even getting into the bad publicity the case has already caused. It’s easy to forget that these two companies are (at least in a technical sense) competitors, and don’t always pursue the same goals in the same way.

Case in point:

I’ve written recently about AT&T’s desire to filter Internet traffic for illegal or copyrighted content, and how this may dovetail with the Bush regime’s plans to spy on the Internet in greater detail. Yesterday, Verizon’s Tom Tauke told the New York Times‘ Saul Hansell that his company, essentially, would not be getting down like that:

He said the company’s view combines a concern for the privacy of its customers with self interest. It may be costly for it to get into the business of policing the traffic on its network. Indeed, phone companies have largely spent a century trying not to be liable for what people say over their lines. “We generally are reluctant to get into the business of examining content that flows across our networks and taking some action as a result of that content,” he said.

This is probably the closest any Verizon rep will ever get to admitting that discriminating in favor of or against Internet content is a bad idea, and that companies who build and host the “pipes” shouldn’t worry about what travels through them. Now, as Matt Browner-Hamlin astutely notes, Verizon didn’t start suddenly giving a damn about customer privacy, as much as they don’t want to be on the hook for enabling copyright violations, in addition to their potential liabilities from illegal spying lawsuits. That’s a lot of dough, even for a company with as much cash in the bank as Verizon.

Verizon also has less to worry about in terms of a bandwith crunch that might lead to content filtering and bandwith metering solutions toyed with by AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast. Verizon’s high-powered FiOS service is built on a direct fiber cable to the home (FTTH for short), whereas AT&T’s competing high-speed service, U-Verse, relies on traditional telephone copper wires for the “last mile” connection to subscribers. Verizon, so far, has been winning the all-important connection speed battle, as well as many more overall customers than U-Verse.

But a buildout of this magnitude costs money, and even with Verizon’s deliberate targeting of FiOS to wealthy suburban communities (redlining lower-income and multi-dwelling units) and massive phone rate increases, it’s still going to take a decent chunk out of Verizon’s stock price to make FiOS profitable. This is actually one reason for the corporation’s initial support of tiered pricing for Internet service and content favoring–they wanted to gouge money from content providers in order to subsidize their buildouts.

And having to play Internet traffic cop, with all the liabilities that may bring, could potentially cost Verizon more than it can handle. Better to continue playing the “dumb pipe” and let the money roll in. This, then, begs the question–why is AT&T pushing forward with its plans when Verizon is not? Is AT&T getting preferential treatment or subsidization from the government if it offers itself up as a content policeman for Hollywood and Washington both?

I don’t have an answer to that. But this is one of the many issues that consumers and activists need to keep an eye on relating to these two companies, both of whom are intimately intertwined with the activities of our government at the highest levels, even as they’re waging a quiet, unseen war for control over the hearts and minds–and wallets and bandwith–of America’s communications.

This leads me to the excellent paper authored by Sascha Meinrath on how the concept of net neutrality needs to be incorporated and expanded into a larger vision of Internet freedom.

Meinrath’s paper (available as a free download, and which I found via the indispensable Natasha Chart) studies the landscape of America’s decrepit and costly broadband offerings in exhaustive detail. He hits all the right marks–the $750 million buildout of “dark fiber” connections that go largely unused, the billions in subsidies given to major telecom companies with no discernible return for the taxpayer, and the current efforts of both telecoms, government, and media companies to restrict, choke, and narrow access to information in order to preserve both their business models and their primacy of content providing.

As Meinrath notes:

From the reemergence of telecommunications giant AT&T to current efforts by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to re-open media ownership proceedings, fewer players are gaining massive market share, creating increasingly vertically and horizontally integrated corporations with the potential to dominate entire market sectors (Kushnick, 1999; McChesney, 1999). The current Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulatory environment fails to spur technological innovation and has retarded expansion of digital inclusion efforts (Cooper, 2004). Instead, the FCC has fostered a decades-long market environment fraught with pricing and geographical discrimination as well as overpriced, substandard telecommunications services (Slotten, 2000)…

Meinrath’s solution is a ten-point plan that recasts the Internet as a global public utility rather than a private enterprise commodity. I’ll translate his points for the tech-phobic among you:

1. Requires Common Carriage. (Every market player has access to the Internet, from public networks to private companies)

2. Is Open Architecture and Supports Open Source Driver Development. (You can use any hardware you want…)

3. Is Open Protocol and Open Standard. (…and any software you want.)

4. Supports an End-to-End Architecture (i.e., is based upon a “dumb network”). (Prevents governmental and corporate attempts to block or prioritize traffic.)

5. Is Private (e.g., no back doors, deep packet inspection, etc.). (No spying allowed!)

6. Is Application-Neutral. (See #2 and #3.)

7. Is Low-Latency and First-In/First-Out (i.e., requires adequate capacity). (Requires carriers to eschew “artificial scarcity” by using all the cables and connections they buy for at least basic access.)

8. Is Interoperable. (Works effectively across the nation and the world.)

9. Is Business Model Neutral. (Enables both public-sector and private-sector innovation.)

10. Is Run by its Users (i.e., is internationally representative and non-Amerocentric). (Self-explanatory.)

Meinrath’s plan doesn’t have all the answers, but he does a marvelous job of providing context and a larger vision for how we can not only rebuild America’s position as a true technological and social innovator in the realm of the Internet, but how this can be expanded into a truly globe-spanning connective system that’s “neutral, democratic, and efficient.” Highly recommended.

And if you’re so inclined, you can go back and read my principles for America’s Internet future, which addresses a lot of similar points, and a few Meinrath doesn’t. Just sayin’.

Meanwhile, AT&T announced that it plans to extend its initiative to examine packets of information on its network for illegally traded content, becoming, in effect, the Internet’s traffic cop.

Let’s see…the world’s largest telecom company states it’s in negotiations with major entertainment conglomerate to police the Internet on their behalf, on the same day the DNI announces the government wants more eyes on Internet traffic?

Mike McConnell is an old friend to the major telecom companies, having most recently stumped on their behalf to grant them retroactive immunity from prosecution in the NSA’s illegal surveillance program. He’s also a big fan of privatizing national security functions, favoring everything from outsourcing background checks to enlisting credit bureaus to handle the work of verifying identities. I find it not at all unfeasible that even as AT&T is offering its services to Big Content, Big Government is waiting expectantly in the visitors’ room for its turn at the till.

There are no coincidences.

Of special note is the fact that committee chairman John Dingell has asked that e-mails and documents relating to the investigation should be retained, and that whistleblowers should be protected against retaliation from Martin. It says something about how deeply broken and off-track the FCC has become that something like this needs to be right upfront in the letter, or that the letter needs to be written at all.

Martin, as I’ve documented extensively over the last few months, is one of the best friends to business money can buy on the Hill, going out of his way to subvert the public interest in order to ensure the desires of big telecoms and bigger media corporations are met. Viewed in this light, it’s impossible to see his desire to investigate Comcast as anything more than another excuse to screw the cable industry for the benefit of AT&T and Verizon.

This is not to say that Comcast shouldn’t be investigated. Remember their amazing invisible bandwith barrier? Or their non-denial denials when caught red-handed interfering with Internet traffic? Although I wouldn’t put Comcast on the same level as the telecoms when it comes to sheer rapaciousness, there’s no question these guys are bad actors and proof of why we need net neutrality protections codified into law.

But the idea of Martin, a normally laissez-faire business-friendly free market advocate, suddenly turning into a pro-regulation zealot where cable TV is concerned, is ludicrous on its face–unless you understand that every one of Martin’s salvos against cable is done less out of a genuine interest for consumer welfare and more out of an assurance that his paymasters will see their needs met. For that alone, Congress should overturn the heavy rock of the FCC, and dig through every bit of dirt they find–no matter how many nasty things crawl out.

CNet’s Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache sent 10 technology-oriented questions to the candidates, discussing net neutrality, Internet taxation, REAL ID, wiretapping, and other issues, and CNet has published the answers as part of their Technology Voter’s Guide. After the jump, we’ll take a closer look at who answered (and who didn’t), and what they said.

So far, the guide has answers from Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Ron Paul and John McCain, with John Edwards and Chris Dodd’s answers still to come. It’s worth noting that none of the frontrunner Republican candidates answered this questionnaire–not Romney, Giuliani, or Huckabee. On the Dem side, Neither Biden nor Richardson have a realistic chance of winning the nomination at this point, nor have either of them made technology innovation a primary focus of their campaigns, so their failing to answer is understandable, if regrettable. (Note that CNet apparently didn’t bother to include Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gravel.)

I urge everyone interested to read each questionnaire in depth, but here’re brief summaries:

John McCain favors a very hands-off, pro-market approach to technology issues. He opposes net neutrality laws and government actions to increase broadband development. He claims to oppose illegal wiretapping, but defers the question of retroactive immunity for telecom companies to following the “process” of investigating what they did. He supports REAL ID, opposes Internet taxation, is a strong proponent of greater regulation of social networking sites against sexual predators, and would favor expansion of H1-B visas for skilled immigrants according to “market conditions.”

Ron Paul, as you might expect, is pretty much anti-everything that would increase government activity with regard to technology. He’s against net neutrality legislation, and opposes REAL ID, warrantless wiretapping, regulation of social networking sites, governmental retention of data records from ISPs, and supports a permanent Internet tax ban and expansion of the H1-B program.

Hillary Clinton sees a much more central role for government in spurring broadband development and adoption, including offering tax incentives for building new connections in rural areas and improving the FCC’s data collection efforts on broadband penetration. She evinces strong support for net neutrality, tends to favor stronger laws against copyright infringement and tracking sex offenders, and supports expanding the H1-B visa program and extending the moratorium on Internet taxation.

Barack Obama supports full broadband availability for all Americans, and wants reformation of the Universal Service Fund as well as tax incentives and grants in order to spur development and ensure the money is spent right. In his words, he will “take a backseat to no one in his support of net neutrality,” and opposes warrantless wiretapping and retroactive immunity, as well as REAL ID. Obama advocates a stronger look at privacy policies and legislation for companies that trade in the sharing of information, prefers shifting a focus towards funding law enforcement over targeting social networking sites for sex offenders, and wants America to turn out more skilled workers with IT abilities (especially among minorities) in order to compete with H1-B holders.

As a thumbnail analysis, all of the candidates have responded in manners consistent with their positions, even if their positions aren’t always consistent.

McCain’s “hands off” attitude toward the Internet seems grounded in his very cushy relationship with certain telecom lobbyists, and is at odds with his “Protect the children!” attitude about social networking sites and willingness to support governmental intrusions into American lives in the name of “security.”

Paul’s answers are consistent with his Libertarian leanings–if it’s from the government, he wants it gone. I respect his cohesive policy framework, even if his attitude about net neutrality and broadband development is dead wrong.

Clinton’s answers are a frustrating mix of progressive innovation and regressive corporatism to me. While I think she’s on point with providing incentives towards broadband development, her support of expanding the H1-B visa program strikes a sour note when you consider how many American IT professionals are out of work, having been outsourced or replaced by foreign nationals working at lower pay.

Obama’s answers are the most forward-thinking for me, especially when he makes a point of addressing how our education system is not only failing minorities in general, but specifically in technology and tech-related areas, and that we can’t rely on foreign workers to fill that gap forever. And to this date, no candidate has eclipsed him on the net neutrality issue that I can see.

Overall, I’m unsurprised at these answers, but glad to have them in concrete to refer to for the future. I’ll publish a follow-up post next week once Edwards’ and Dodd’s positions are live. This is a welcome and necessary look at how our potential leaders have (or don’t have) a handle on some extremely relevant issues of technology that affect us all.

Emerging markets represent the next frontier for broadband, with some analysts estimating that nearly one-fifth of the world’s population will have broadband access of some kind by the end of 2008. Think about that. Nearly one in every six people across the entire planet will be able to use the Internet far more richly than dial-up could ever allow. That’s immeasurable potential for creating, consuming, and contributing content.

Meanwhile, fully half of America’s citizens do not have any broadband access. As Benton Foundation head Charles Benton noted, the deadline set by President Bush to achieve nationwide broadband availability for all Americans has long since passed, with little to show for it. Quoth Benton:

“Claiming that our nation’s broadband deployment is on track when millions are disconnected and America is falling further behind is a little like standing on a flight deck and claiming ‘mission accomplished.’ The facts just don’t support it.”

As I detailed in my statement of principles for America’s broadband future,  low-income and middle-income Americans are being deprived of the chance to partake in that glorious engine of creation and commerce that is the Internet. Imagine all the jobs, ideas, and participation we’re losing–all the art, creation, and vision that isn’t happening because thousands of families and communities are stuck with snail-paced Internet access.  Hell, even if it’s just to look at porn and silly Web comics, people should still have the option to choose broadband, and not be denied it by default.

The front-runner Democratic candidates have all correctly tied lack ofbroadband access to America’s failing leadership in innovation, and have put forth policies to address this to one level or another. (Here’re statements from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards–Obama has the clearest and most detailed policy platform on this issue that I can see.) This is probably too wonky a topic to make it into the forefront of a debate, but then again, who would have thought the issue of net neutrality would have been such a front-burner issue?

Americans recognize that we’re lagging behind in our broadband access, and we want change. Countries like Taiwan are making it happen, and we can adopt their successes to the unique challenges America faces in order to give everyone the chance to make full use of the Internet, and share their innovations and ideas with the world.

Simply put, we can’t afford not to.

Ahem. So those of you who thought Ron Paul was going to go away once the big boys got serious have probably been surprised by his staying power so far. He’s polling in the high single digits (something Ronald Reagan Fred Thompson can’t say) and one pollster thinks his actual numbers are in the double digits. He says he’s raised $19M this quarter. His supporters are insane courageously enthusiastic, and he seems to be showing strength among some groups that you wouldn’t expect – progressives, younger voters, etc.

And of course, he’s left the rest of the pack for dead in the highly scientific S&R reader poll, where at the moment of this writing he has over twice as many votes as the rest of the GOP candidates put together (unless you count “other”).

Election watchers in both parties are trying to better understand Paul’s appeal and what it means for their candidates’ chances. Based on what I’m reading lately, I’m not sure which party is more concerned about a potential 3rd-party run by the representative from TX-14. Probably the GOP, although some Dem strategists are paying closer attention than you’d expect. In fact, I’ve even seen some very smart progressive analysts working through early primary scenarios whereby Paul becomes a legit power past South Carolina.

A good part of Paul’s popularity seems as obvious as the reasons why both parties should be nervous. To put it simply – which is how we Americans like our issues – Ron Paul is right about some very important things. He’s balls-to-the-wall against our little misadventure in Iraq. He likewise opposes hostilities against the region’s other Ira, Iran. And he managed to see the Patriot Act for the blatant assault on our liberties that it is. He’s distressed by our nation’s move toward a “soft” fascism (although I’m damned if I can find much in his actual voting record that’s consistent with his concern that “corporations [are] running the show” and “big government [is] in bed with big business”; more on this below). There are others, but these are the high spots for a lot of his supporters, I suspect.

There are also a number of issues where Paul is wrong. Way wrong. Tragically wrong. And if you find my use of the word “wrong” arrogant, then let me see if I can put it more objectively: Ron Paul holds positions on many issues that likely run counter to the beliefs of many of his supporters. It’s this segment of voters – disaffected progressives and moderates who’ve had enough of the GOP – that I’d like to address. Short version: I feel your pain, but I fear you’re letting your pain lead you into barking idiocy short-sightedness and counterproductive anti-thinking.

For instance, what about that nasty racism issue that won’t seem to go away? Let’s look at some of his own words:

The professional blacks may have cowed the elites, but good sense survives at the grass roots. Many more are going to have difficultly avoiding the belief that our country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists — and they can be identified by the color of their skin. This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for many, entirely unavoidable.

Indeed, it is shocking to consider the uniformity of opinion among blacks in this country. Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action…. Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the “criminal justice system,” I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.

If similar in-depth studies were conducted in other major cities, who doubts that similar results would be produced? We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.

We should note that Paul later attempted to back off of these words a bit by explaining that he didn’t say them, they were the product of the people who wrote his newsletter for him. So that absolves him of responsibility and guilt, I guess.

But then there’s this bit, attributed to the American National Socialist Workers Party Web site:

Comrades:

I have kept quiet about the Ron Paul campaign for a while, because I didn’t see any need to say anything that would cause any trouble. However, reading the latest release from his campaign spokesman, I am compelled to tell the truth about Ron Paul’s extensive involvement in white nationalism.

Both Congressman Paul and his aides regularly meet with members of the Stormfront set, American Renaissance, the Institute for Historic Review, and others at the Tara Thai restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, usually on Wednesdays. This is part of a dinner that was originally organized by Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis and Joe Sobran, and has since been mostly taken over by the Council of Conservative Citizens.

Is Ron Paul a racist? I don’t know what lurks in the man’s heart, but I don’t think it unreasonable to suggest that he’s given us ample reason to wonder, do you? He’s certainly abandoned any presumption of innocence in an electoral context.

This is hardly the only point where an educated, thoughtful, progressive-minded voter might pause to reflect on Congressman Paul. For instance:

• He’s ardently anti-choice, which makes me question whether he’s even a real Libertarian. He has managed to concoct a rationalization around the rights of fetuses, but it strikes me as labored (and his invocation of Terri Schiavo doesn’t help here, either)..
• He’s earned a 76% rating from the Christian Coalition. I hate to get too ad hominem, but this is an organization that makes a point of opposing all things socially progressive.
• He voted NO on allowing embryonic stem cell research. (May 2005) This doesn’t tell you all you need to know, but it tells you a lot that it’s helpful to know.
• Voted YES on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad.
• Voted NO on requiring lobbyist disclosure of bundled donations. (May 2007) Because, you know, he’s worried about corporatism.
• Voted NO on campaign finance reform banning soft-money contributions. (Feb 2002) Because he’s terribly concerned about politicians being in bed with the big money.
• Voted NO on banning soft money and issue ads. (Sep 1999)
• Voted YES on building a fence along the Mexican border. (Sep 2006)
• Voted NO on increasing the minimum wage to $7.25. (Jan 2007) You can really begin to sense his rage at exploitative big business here, can’t you?
• Voted NO on “network neutrality.” (Jun 2006)
• Voted NO on allowing telephone monopolies to offer Internet access. (Feb 2002)
• He supports a Constitutional Amendment for school prayer. Because there’s nowhere left in America where you can go to pray, I guess.
• YES on “protecting” the Pledge of Allegiance.
• YES on vouchers for private & parochial schools.
• He’s rated at 5% by the League of Conservation Voters, indicating a strongly anti-environment record.
• NO on raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards and incentives for alternative fuels.
• NO on prohibiting oil drilling & development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Source)

Now, I get that no candidate is perfect. Very few people are lucky enough to have a candidate on the ballot for any office who agrees with him or her 100% of the time. We all have to decide which candidate comes closest to representing our views on the issues that matter most to us. I’m no different from Paul’s supporters on this. If I vote for Edwards, I’ll do so because his views on critical class issues outweigh his views on gays and the fact that, apology notwithstanding, he was once dumb enough to fall for Dubya’s lying and warmongering. If I vote for Obama I’ll have to find a way past the fact that he’s way too willing to issue high-sounding pronouncements from a safe distance while actual leaders are back doing the dirty work of standing up for the Constitution. If I vote for Hillary I’ll have to overlook just about everygoddamnedthing and hold my nose while I vote for bad over evil. If I vote for Huckabee or Giuliani I’ll have to find a way to deal with the fact that somebody lobotomized me in my sleep.

Yes, there are a number of issues where Paul isn’t just right, he’s probably the most right of all the candidates. And yes, I understand how your rage over two or three major issues can dominate your thinking.

But backing Paul, when we consider the full range of issues? That isn’t cutting off your nose to spite your face. It’s stuffing your entire body into a wood chipper to spite your face. The truth is that once you get past Iraq and the Patriot Act, he’s worse than the Busheviks on most other issues.

• He’s iffy on race – at best.
• His Fundie Right anti-abortion leanings are so strong they’re the one thing that compels him to abandon Libertarian dogma. In fact, he’s been known to express a baffling degree of Christian paranoia.
  

  “We hear bleats about homophobia, but it is actually religiophobia that afflicts America. The government is starting with the fringe, but it won’t stop there. All Christians have much to fear.”

  Right. Because since only 85%+ of Americans and an even higher percentage of our political leaders are Christians, there’s a real risk that the 10% Satanic/Liberal minority is going to overrun the place any day now.

• He’s a corporatist’s wet dream and an environmentalist’s worst nightmare.
• He places the rights of stem cells that are never going to be used to conceive a fetus above those of actual human beings with serious illnesses.

America has more than one or two problems. And nothing creates more and worse problems than a lot of one-issue voting. So for those of my fellow citizens who are in love with Ron Paul, I ask you to step back, take a deep breath, and think about the fact that it does us little good to get out of Iraq if the cost is further annihilating the home front. Please, think about the big picture.

And for our other presidential candidates, especially the Democrats who are allegedly about progress, all I want for Christmas is for you to stop making a pro-corporatist, anti-environment, anti-choice Jesuscrat with a disturbing record on race look viable.

I don’t think that’s asking too much. Do you?

First came the announcement that Google’s much-heralded online storage service, GDrive, is lurching towards a launch. This isn’t really as big a deal as it may seem–as the Ars Technica article notes, Microsoft, Apple, and AOL already have online storage services–but Google will undoubtedly trump those offerings through sheer size and interconnectedness with other apps like Docs, Picasa, etc. For those who support the concept of the Internet as auxiliary brain, GDrive will no doubt be manna from heaven to those who want complete open access to their work from any platform.

Of course, putting the entire contents of your hard drive online using Google could mean that you’re essentially giving Google free license to use your work as it sees fit, but thanks in no small part to the efforts of people like my fellow scholarly rogue Brian, Google has clarified that it will not try to pwnz0r documents or files you upload to its services. Still, I don’t plan to use GDrive any time in the near future–I like my brain nice and offline, thanks muchly.

Even more interesting is Verizon Wireless’ announcement that starting in 2008, it will open its wireless network to all devices and software that meet its technical standards. Given that Verizon has staunchly favored the “walled garden” approach and has been a devout foe of net neutrality and wireless interoperability, this is a road-to-Damascus moment that puts even Mark Halperin’s mea culpa to shame (so to speak).

The big unknown here is the “technical standards” Verizon will be putting forth. How open will those standards truly be? What kind of hitches and “gotchas” will be in there? It’s definitely going to require a fine-tooth comb to go over Verizon’s proposals and make sure they’re being truthful–after all, this is the company that claimed it offered “unlimited wireless broadband” that was anything but unlimited.

Still, this is a huge step forward and a big gauntlet toss at the other carriers. Will AT&T finally unlock the iPhone in response? Will phones be made that can work on both GSM and CDMA carriers? These are all questions that can be legitimately asked now, and will be demanding answers–that’s how big this move is.

It’s truly a strange day when one of the hoariest of the old communication titans upstages the new king of the hill, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

I have to go scrub my eyeballs with Clorox now.

Thanks (?) to Lara Velarde for passing this on.

But yesterday Obama sharpened his attempt to secure support in the geek tech crowd with an ambitious proposal outlining his presidential technology policy.

The proposal begins by reaffirming Obama’s support for net neutrality, using some particularly strong language that condemns the telecom duopoly and our overall sad state of American broadband development:

Because most Americans only have a choice of only one or two broadband carriers, carriers are tempted to impose a toll charge on content and services, discriminating against websites that are unwilling to pay for equal treatment. This could create a two-tier Internet in which websites with the best relationships with network providers can get the fastest access to consumers, while all competing websites remain in a slower lane. Such a result would threaten innovation, the open tradition and architecture of the Internet, and competition among content and backbone providers. It would also threaten the equality of speech through which the Internet has begun to transform American political and cultural discourse.

Nice stuff–the kind of thing you’d expect myself or Matt Stoller to say. Of particular interest to me as well was the section discussing how technology can endanger privacy and what Obama plans to do to address that:

• To ensure that powerful databases containing information on Americans that are necessary tools in the fight against terrorism are not misused for other purposes, Barack Obama supports restrictions on how information may be used and technology safeguards to verify how the information has actually been used.

• Obama supports updating surveillance laws and ensuring that law enforcement investigations andintelligence-gathering relating to U.S. citizens are done only under the rule of law.
• Obama will also work to provide robust protection against misuses of particularly sensitive kinds of information, such as e-health records and location data that do not fit comfortably within sector-specific privacy laws.
• Obama will increase the Federal Trade Commission’s enforcement budget and will step up international cooperation to track down cyber-criminals so that U.S. law enforcement can better prevent and punish spam, spyware, telemarketing and phishing intrusions into the privacy of American homes and computers.

I’d like to see the Obama campaign directly address the fact that government agencies are turning to corporate partners to act as proxies in developing “data shadows” that contain comprehensive profiles on people. While safeguards and restrictions are nice, Obama should be confronting the question of why these vast treasure troves exist in the first place–and why big business is so keen to turn it over to big government at the first opportunity. Still, it’s a good start.

Probably the most ambitious part of the proposal is Obama’s push for a much more transparent government, where the public would not only have the opportunity to view rulemaking and legislation, but actively participate in the process through usage of the Internet to foster communication and “knowledge transfer.” Obama also puts forth the idea to appoint a nationwide Chief Technology Officer, which makes sense to me–too much of our technological development, particularly in the area of Internet and broadband creation, is spread out among too many agencies, with too many conflicting rules and jurisdictional struggles.

There’s a lot more in the proposal, and I urge you to give it a read. Ars Technica’s Jon Stokes’ review notes that much of the open government policy may not make it past the realities of backroom-deal politicking, and that anti-government libertarians may have a collective shit fit at the amount of government interest-and involvement-this sort of policy plan will require, as well as many areas in which Obama’s lofty rhetoric may not be supported by serious substance. On the other hand, Matt Stoller, who has been harshly critical of Obama in the past, is now much closer to becoming a believer thanks to this document.

As a tech geek myself, detailed policy positions on things like broadband development and the Internet future are to me what spinach is to Popeye, and it delights me to see one of the Big 3 Democrats addressing these issues so openly. At a time when the political discourse sinks ever lower and is dominated by hot-button issues like immigration, the need to discuss technology issues and advance new ideas has never been more important.

Not only that, advancing America’s technology can open up new cultural, social, and economic vistas for everyone–but only if they have the access. As I said in my broadband for America manifesto, the digital divide needs to be bridged if everyone is to take advantage of the potential the Internet offers. Obama has come through on challenging FCC chair Kevin Martin on his plans to relax rules against media consolidation, and has supported legislation demanding better data on broadband adoption, so he’s got some cred to back up the hype.

Obama isn’t breaking tremendous new ground here–as was noted during his press-the-flesh session at Google, much of what he proposes is already being done on the state level, and has been advanced by others before. But he’s actually developing a coherent framework for tech issues, building many good ideas into a cohesive whole–something he has NOT done until now. If he can meld the coherency of this idea with his overall manifesto of change–and back it up with strong answers to the tough questions, not to mention applying that coherency to other areas–he might make a believer out of me too.

Consider the following:

While ramping up his efforts to attack Hillary Clinton as a typical DC insider and friend to corporate interests, Obama actually beat Clinton to the punch in expressing his support for the expansion of NAFTA into Peru, guaranteeing that workers’ interests would be shafted in favor of the same corporate interests that would benefit from so-called “free” trade–and assuring them that he can be their friend even better than Hillary.

Then you have his idea of tolerance apparently exemplified as an anti-gay pastor speaking at his rallies, then adding a gay white pastor to speak to largely black crowds–barely.

And Obama seems to have completely swallowed the Kool-Aid that Social Security is a looming crisis that must be immediately “dealt with” in some vague fashion, even though this is an issue that has (at least for me) been thoroughly debunked. How odd is it for a candidate that so strongly espouses change and new solutions as Obama to wholeheartedly embrace a topic that puts him squarely at odds with one of the first big progressive victories of the new millenium?

Not to mention that Obama (along with Biden, Dodd, and Clinton) missed the late-night vote to confirm Michael “Waterboarding’s not really torture” Mukasey as Attorney General.

And yet, Obama has come out in favor of net neutrality more strongly than any other candidate to date. He has joined sponsorship of legislation to prevent media consolidation that would hurt minority media ownership. Despite what people may tell you, he voted against the odious 2005 bankruptcy bill. And he’s been against the Iraq (and Iran) wars from the get-go.

Even as Obama’s rhetoric sharpens against his competitors for the Presidential nomination, he continues to portray himself as the candidate of change, of building bridges, of inclusiveness and bipartisanship. I don’t expect candidates to follow a check-box litmus test of issues I agree with–that’s ludicrous. What I do want is for their stances to make sense, to flow from a coherent framework of an ideal of governance. Obama is trying so hard to be inclusive that his policy positions are all over the place, but he’s not coherently explaining how these differing stances work together.

To paraphrase an old saying, if you try to stand for everything, how can you really stand for anything? Can Obama’s wide stance really hold him aloft, or is he in danger of losing his balance?

Obama isn’t the be-all savior for what ails our country. No one is. If there’s a message I thought we were successfully delivering in the netroots is that it was up to US to move this country in the right direction since we couldn’t depend on our so-called “leaders”. This sort of hero worship of several of our candidates (Edwards, Obama, and even Hillary) is somewhat creepy to begin with, but serves little more than to set up the inevitable disappointment. And when your hero turns out to be not so perfect after all, clinging to that fiction can’t possibly reflect well on you. Understand that these candidates are all human, thus imperfect. Understand that they have free will, thus will do things you will disagree with. And that’s okay. Politics is about weighing the good and the bad and going with the best we have. There is no such thing as “perfect” in this biz. Feel free to rationalize every stupid thing your candidate does, but don’t expect the rest of us to go along with it. All of the Democrats have done stupid things and smart things. I mean, Chris Dodd announced his candidacy on Don Imus, for chrissakes. And yes, when they do those stupid things, some of us will be right there talking about how stupid those things are.

Exactly. This may be difficult to parse, but I’ll try to make sense of it–while it’s unreasonable to expect perfection from a politician or candidate, it is not unreasonable to demand perfection, at least in as much as you can expect pols and candidates to do their jobs and stand up for the things they claim to believe in.

Kos uses Chris Dodd as an example, so I will too. The surge in “Doddmentum” for his campaign thanks to his challenge to Bush and Harry Reid over FISA didn’t happen solely due to his own efforts, impressive though they were–it happened due to thousands of people calling his office, e-mailing him, and demanding he stand up. That’s the true expression of democracy in action–an involved, committed, and interested public telling their leaders what they want to see happen, and the leaders responding to those concerns. Representative democracy has a tendency to make us lazy, and expect that the politicians we elect will ignore the massive institutional forces weighing on them (internal politics, campaign contributors, media reporting) and do what’s right, by golly. Uh-uh. These people need to hear it from us again, and again, and again, consistently. Otherwise our voices–and our issues–will be pushed to the back of the bus far behind lobbyists, consultants, and other paid flacks of the political world.

And what about Barack Obama, a candidate whose message of hope transfixed millions and got them involved in his race? That’s another example–because people were so keyed in to the myth of Obama as the conscientious, compassionate, and above all, leaderly savior, it makes it all the more jarring when he does dumb shit like letting a rampant homophobic bigot talk trash at a fundraiser. That’s the same kind of tone-deafness he demonstrated when I called him out for being so dismissive of Chinese manufacturing concerns at a time when millions of products made in China are being recalled for defects.

And yet, when the pressure gets put on Obama–when people ignore his aura of fatherly leadership and get right in his face about where he stands–he listens. He joined Dodd in supporting a filibuster of FISA when MoveOn.org and the blogs put pressure on. He put out a stronger message opposing the confirmation of Mukasey as AG when his earlier “non-public” message didn’t get enough traction. And at a time when net neutrality issues are front and center thanks to rampant corporate stupidity, Obama came out strongly supporting the concept on the record at his MTV town hall.

Does a good decision outweigh or undo a bad decision? No. You have to judge any candidate or elected official by the whole of their accomplishments or principles. George W. Bush sucks, for instance, because the litany of bad decisions he’s made so utterly outweighs the good that a balanced view is nigh-impossible to achieve. Obama’s lost a lot of goodwill and support from people that would otherwise be backing him, but he can get it back if he listens. Dodd listened to the people and was rewarded as a result. It’s not a difficult concept to figure out–hear what your people are saying, listen to them, and don’t assume that you know what’s right.

In turn, it’s our job to get out there and remind people that they work for us. We can’t wait for leadership to be demonstrated. We have to forge the leaders we need in the crucible of conflict, discussion, negotiation, and idea exchange. We’ve had seven years of a president who cares nothing for what anyone thinks beyond his own inner circle of stooges, sycophants, and manipulators. Compared to that, I’ll take a president who makes crappy decisions, listens to people telling them that they’re crappy, and makes better decisions as a result.

So it seems like a welcome development that Federal Communications Commission chair Kevin Martin announced today that his agency would move quickly to end the practice of exclusive contracts with multi-dwelling units (MDUs), in order to promote lower cable prices and prevent cable services from being priced out of reach of low-income families:

“Exclusive contracts have been one of the most significant barriers to competition,” Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the commission, said in an interview. Cable prices have risen “about 93 percent in the last 10 years,” he said. “This is a way to introduce additional competition, which will result in lower prices and greater innovation.”

Sounds great, right? No one likes their cable company, after all, and being able to choose your own provider instead of being stuck with whatever mediocre offering your building cut a deal with seems to be a good bargain. But what’s the real motive behind Martin’s move?

As my ConsumerAffairs.Com colleague Truman Lewis reports, Martin’s decision is the latest in a long series of moves by his FCC to favor major telecom companies to the exclusion of cable incumbents. Martin aggressively shepherded the rollout of new video franchising rights for telecom companies that would enable them to bypass local governments and deal directly with states–a big help when you want your expensive new video services like FiOS or U-Verse to go directly to specific, rich neighborhoods and bypass lower-income areas. As Ars Technica’s Nate Anderson notes, winning the ability to wire new “triple play” services to MDUs would be a huge boon to telecom competitors–and a bust for their foes in the cable sector.

Martin has also been a fervent champion of “a la carte” packaging for cable programming, which would enable subscribers to only buy the channels they want. Again, this seems like a boon for the end-user, but it would also severely undercut cable companies’ ability to buy channel packages at a bulk discount when creating programming blocks–and would thus limit their offerings and drive away subscribers, which could only benefit cable’s new competition in the telecom industry.

Kevin Martin has been such a lopsidedly zealous supporter of telecom interests that he and the entire commission got dragged before Congress earlier this year and grilled for their lack of oversight and attention paid to consumer issues. Martin’s zealous support for the megamerger of AT&T and BellSouth also won him no friends in the consumer rights world, especially his implied threat that the FCC would not force AT&T to live up to its agreement to support net neutrality as part of the merger. During the discussion of the rules for the upcoming 700 mhz wireless auction, Kevin Martin claimed to support “open access” wholly and ended up endorsing a much more lukewarm set of rules that may end up favoring incumbents in the long run.

And if his recent rush to approve new rules enabling even more consolidation of media in regional markets are any indication, Martin appears to have learned little from his recent criticism. So I guess the moral of this particular story is “Take nothing at face value.” Kevin Martin may be making decisions that benefit consumers, but his eyes have always been on the prize of ensuring his favored allies in the telecom industry get the biggest slice of the pie.