Thanks for sharing the arcticle and point of view. I personally would side with the conclusion of the author, which is one reason I supported congress's protest to overturn the FCC's netneutrality work. However, there are trade offs with anything.
The first battle might have been to stop the FCC wrong doing, but if that is won, there becomes a second harder battle of "how do you stop the entity that takes over (congress) from doing worse harm?". Note, Cogress can do harm via legal methods, where they might not be bound by the same openess laws as the FCC officials. An example, I can use is the last FCC administration that favored TV Whitespace for Unlicensed, where the new and future FCC or even congress might possibly favor Mobile carriers use of TV Whitespace. We sometimes forget what sparks change. The predicessor lost public support to the extend that it was worth the risk to try change. Votes were made based on what they previously didn't like, instead of viewpoints they liked from future candidates. This is not as simple as democrat versus republican thing, because both parties have forces that work against us and for us. I've always been a supporter of less government. But we also sometimes forget, that there is another force called "big business" that can be a threat to the average business. Sometimes the only entity large enough and capable to help combat big business is government, unless small business is clever enough to play politics and turn one big business against another big business, to have them do the work for us, to encourage a lesser harm end result. My point here is... its a catch-22 no matter what we do. For example, supporting policy makers that combat socialistic policy, would likely at the same time support policy makers that increase support for big business. Winning one could means losing the other. In my testimony, I wrote, "stay out of our business, its not yours.". But realistically, that will never occur as long as there are lobbyist calling on the government to deal with issues of our industry, and we dont have the ability to stop our competitors from doing that. Its not as simple as saying, "dont regulate us". Because even if we are not regulated by the FCC, powers in charge still make laws that will effect our industry from another angle, by making laws and programs that prefer our competitors that might be regulated. In conclusion, my opinion is we need to stop complaining about our government leaders in place, and instead, start looking for the leaders to take their place that will be better apt to give us the support and ideology that what we need. Or we need to continue to educate and influence our prospective leaders to be able to better support us. So far, I haven't seen anyone that clearly would give us everything we need. Unless we identify and hand pick those potential leaders, more change will just lead to more of the same. I will concur that "less government and regulation" is better, all things considered and simplified. But the irony here is... in order to accomplish that, we are going to have to turn to our government politicians to gain their support and get them involved to implement that plan of "lesser government". One of the things I have always said is that our issues would go to congress sooner than later. And that is happening now, congress is getting involved. This could be a good or bad thing depending on the outcome of their involvement. There is no time better than now to be active in government lobbying for the Internet industry. The truth is... there are good people in congress, and involved on the commerce committee. But the problem is our opponents' lobbying forces at the congressional level are stronger than ever. Its a lot of work to lobby 600 house and senate law makers. I've always been one to want drive a strong clear stance. But in my later years, I'm starting to learn that sometimes being realistic, which might result in compromising on a stance, has a better chance to lead to some level of possitive change. From what I've seen, that has always been what politics has been about. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband ----- Original Message ----- From: "MDK" <rea...@muddyfrogwater.us> To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> Sent: Friday, June 03, 2011 9:08 PM Subject: [WISPA] FCC not listening to us > Take what you read here with a grain of salt, the quality of articles is > variable. However, that at some level, the hearings were a sham, is not > to be disputed. > > When partisans, who are motivated to implement political ideology, over > stewardship of public assets, are appointed to office... this is what you > get. Everyone keeps accusing me of being political and I keep trying to > tell you all that THEY are the ones who are bringing politics into your > and > my business, often partisan or ideologically radical politics, at that. > > http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/06/conn-carroll-documents-show-fcc-coordinated-net-neutrality-effort-outside > > I said years ago it was a waste of time to try to generate "good will" in > WAshington DC. The other name for "good will" is bribery, and when the > people change, all we did was start the history of both asking for and > playing in a game of "who's got the most to offer". From day one, WISPA > should have held a strident and inflexible position that ISP's are NOT to > be > subject to regulation, federal mandates, etc, and made friends of the > organizations who would help us in that message and fight. > > Instead, we've played into their hands and now have no history except one > of > "going along to get along", while a tiny, but influential number of us who > are still trying to get their hands on other people's money, have managed > to > make WISPA's history one of non-opposition to mandates and regulation - > while continually shouting that opposition to mandates and regulations and > refusal to accept such mandates was "partisan politics" - "radical > politics" > at that. > > I can't imagine and I'm not even trying to guess what percentage of WISP's > believe as a matter of simple and straitforward principle that we should > NOT > be under the federal government's thumb, providing free labor for the > benefit of politicians, as a price of being "allowed" into business. > But > I can't imagine that percentage being any less than almost all of us. > > It was and is, and always will be perfectly NON PARTISAN notion that > businesses should be free to operate without providing blackmail money or > free labor to politicians to serve the public's needs. It isn't even > political. It's a rational and perfectly sensible idea for any > businessperson to hold. And any American, for that matter. > > > > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > Neofast, Inc, Making internet easy > 541-969-8200 509-386-4589 > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > WISPA Wants You! Join today! > http://signup.wispa.org/ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! 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