The Politics Thread

[DramatistDreamer]

The Internet morphed into the disastrous wreck we have today because of corporations like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon (once known as Ma Bell-Bell Atlantic) and the other consolidated cable and telecommunications company getting into the industry and closing out the smaller, independent Internet Service Providers (ISPs). 

 

As a student, I started using what was known as the World Wide Web when it first started to become known to the general public, around 1994 but 1996, I was taking computer science courses on html (when, in order to build your own website, you had to learn how to write code, none of this template stuff that everybody does today.  The Internet, while only accessible to a small population, was a completely commerce-free environment, that was about connecting with people (an outgrowth of the flourishing of electronic mail a.k.a. "e-mail"). 

By around 1997-98, small, independent start-ups sprang up to offer Internet service for little cost.  By 1999-00, big telecommunications companies (AT&T, chief among them)  decided that they were not content to see indie/small startups thriving--they wanted in.  The communications behemoths began to squeeze the smaller, indie ISPs (which tried but couldn't compete as companies like AT&T had a lock on the wires and infrastructure that ISPs used) out of the industry.  Unfortunately, ISPs couldn't pay the cost of paying companies like AT&T for the use of their wires, as they didn't have the capital but these indie ISPs did try to hang in there--some raised their monthly fees, others like Netzero, went from free to a form of "metering" their service, whereas it had previously been unlimited.  Eventually, most of the corporate titans swallowed the smaller, indie ISPs (anyone remember AT&T buying out EarthLink?).

By 2005, The telecommunications behemoths had a virtual lock on the industry.  The Bush administration, headed by a "CEO in the White House" did nothing to stop the tide of these corporations forming a virtual monopoly on the industry, setting the monthly fees as they had done with the cable, claiming that they were raising industry standards and creating/shoring up better use of technological infrastructure and spurring innovation to ensure worldclass Internet, therefore they needed to keep fees at a certain level to cover costs.  Nonsense!  Across the Atlantic, in places like the U.K., Germany and the E.U.,  competition between ISPs flourished, which kept companies competing for business and kept prices down.  And in Asia, Internet technology was at least a full decade ahead of the U.S. (e.g. they had video phones on mobile many years before the U.S. did) as they began to build their fiber optic technology (cables wired under the sea floor) post WWII.  

The U.S. telecommunication corporations'  contribution to the Internet was not innovation or technology, it was the introduction of commerce and money, which opened the door for fraud, scams and other forms of criminality (As early as 2002, I reported an incident of "phishing" to my bank when my bank had no idea what "phishing" even was!) all in the name of financial greed.  So that is where we are today and IMO, the big telecommunications firms are the reason why we are in the state we are in. 

 

 

Even the founders of the World Wide Web/Internet suggested that we needed to "start over" and build an alternate web, one just for connection, communication and education, where information is shared freely and commerce is banned. 

Edited October 11, 2019 by DramatistDreamer

[DramatistDreamer]

Since 2017, the number of Cuban deportations has increased ten-fold. So far, I haven't heard a peep from Marco Rubio. Oh well.

 

[DramatistDreamer]

And I said this was going to happen from the get-go.  Clearly, she was never going to bow to Trump.

 

So Trump is against interventions in the Middle East...unless it benefits his bank account.

 

[Khan]

 

IMO, Trump's actions regarding the Kurds amount to treason.  That ALONE should be grounds for removal from office, let alone impeachment.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Khan

[Vee]

The only reason Trump has staved off removal this long is because of Bill Barr, who is an old school GOP crook and the only smart one in the room. As a Rolling Stone headline indicated, he is Trump's Dick Cheney analog now that they've stumbled into. But Barr is implicated too, and no one satisfies Trump for long. If he too departs, Trump is fucked.

[Vee]

 

 

[marceline]

 

It really is horrible how this monster has betrayed everything this country is supposed to stand for.

[Vee]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cat]

1,000% agree. The convo with the Ukrainian president? I expect no less of the orange asswipe. But what he has done to the Kurds -- without a backward glance, out of sight, out of mind -- is truly evil, truly treasonous, the true crime here. Innocent people are now dead, and much worse is to come in the next few days. It is ethnic cleansing in all but name. Moreover, the rumour is Trump is doing this because he renovated a Trump Tower in Istanbul and wants to protect his business interest. If true, our allies were thrown to the wolves to protect a shitty, gaudy piece of concrete in Turkey. It is so gross, it makes me want to throw up.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Cat

[dragonflies]

Wow 

 

 

[Vee]

The one honest man at Fox.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile:

 

 

[DramatistDreamer]

 

This is what Trump has done to most of the U.S.' existing treaties and agreements, only in this instance signs of the damage has been almost immediate.  I mentioned this up-thread the other day.  This will do lasting damage to the U.S. in negotiating treaties and accords going forward. 

 

 

ICYMI-

 

[Vee]

Another McGurk thread to click through and read:

 

 

[DramatistDreamer]

I'm beginning to think that the Ukraine talking points being sent to Democrats is not a mistake but someone inside trying to bust these GOP con artist.

 

Also, I know I can't be the only one who made the connection between the clandestine meeting between Rupert Murdoch and A.G. Barr with Shep Smith's departure.

[Khan]

 

You aren't, lol.

 

I, too, believe Shep's departure had something to do with Murdoch and Barr's meeting (and vice-versa).  Shep was probably the ONLY one at Fox News willing to call out the administration on their bullshit, and now he's gone?  AND, he leaves "escorted by security," too, after his last broadcast, which apparently caught everyone at FNC and FBC by surprise?

 

In life, there are no such things as coincidences.

 

Which also explains my feelings about the talking points being leaked AGAIN to the Democrats.  I'm with you on that as well, @DramatistDreamer.  As they say in all those cheesy horror movies, the calls (or, in this case, the talking points) are coming from inside the house.

 

 

Cue the "Hanoi Jane" rehashes from the right.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Khan